The Eighth Commandment

by Lawrence Sanders

  “He won’t believe a word of it,” Smack said promptly. “He’ll think you’re warm for his form and just called to set up a meet. That guy’s got an ego that doesn’t end. But that’s okay; we can use that.”

  “Well, what do you want me to get out of him? I’m not going to enjoy this.”

  “I know that, Dunk, but if I didn’t think you could handle it, I wouldn’t have suggested it. If he comes on too strong, just tell him to get lost. I’d like to learn two things: One: Have there been any other thefts from the Havistock apartment, like silver, plate, cash, pieces of art—small things that could easily be carried out. I’m thinking of Natalie now; she’s capable of lifting stuff like that to keep her sewing circle in grass. Two: Are Ross Minchen and Vanessa Havistock having a thing? I picked up some scuttlebutt that suggests they might be making nice-nice together. If anyone would know, it would be Orson Vanwinkle. He’s the kind of guy who gets pleasure from knowing everyone is as rotten as he is.”

  “All right, Jack,” I said, “I’ll try to find out. No guarantees.”

  “I understand that. And I want you to know that I appreciate what you’re doing to help me. Can I call you later, Dunk?”

  “No,” I said, “I’ll call you. After I see Vanwinkle—if I do.”

  “Maybe we can have dinner tonight.”

  “Maybe,” I said.

  In for a penny, in for a pound; so I called Orson Vanwinkle, determined to be sorrowful and regretful. I asked timidly if he would convey my apologies to Archibald Havistock on the loss of his Demaretion.

  “Sure, doll,” Vanwinkle said, with what I can only describe as an Evil Chuckle. “I’ll tell the old man. Hey, how’s about you and me getting together?”

  As my grandmother said—a lounge lizard.

  “Such as?” I asked.

  “Let me take a look at my schedule. Ah, yes, I have a business lunch at the Four Seasons at one o’clock today. Silly things: tax shelters and all that. I should get them off my back in time to meet you at the Four Seasons’ bar at three o’clock. We’ll have a drink or two and tell each other the stories of our lives. How does that sound?”

  “Sounds fine,” I said faintly. “All right, I’ll be there. You will tell Mr. Havistock how sorry I am?”

  “Trust me, babe,” he said, and hung up.

  In that short conversation I had been “doll” and “babe.” Could “sweetie” and “chick” be far away?

  Now’s a good time to tell you something about the geography of my apartment, because it has a lot to do with what transpired in the next few weeks.

  It was a basement (or ground floor) apartment that you entered by coming down three steps from the sidewalk (past the plastic garbage cans) in a short hallway. A staircase led to the upper five floors of the brownstone. My pad was at the end of the ground-floor corridor.

  It was called a “garden apartment” (ha-ha), but it did have a back door giving access to a small patch of desert shaded by one noble ailanthus tree. I had tried to grow other things in that sad, scrabbly scrap of earth. Forget it.

  You came into my place via a short hallway, just wide enough for a narrow sideboard and two nothing chairs. The bedroom was on your right. Straight ahead was the living-dining room area: large enough, I admit, but with a ceiling so low I was always afraid of scraping my scalp. The little John was to the left of that, and to the right was the compact kitchen with a barred door that led to my “garden.”

  I’m not complaining, mind you. It was rent-regulated; I was lucky to have it, and I knew it. In Des Moines, we had a three-story detached house with five bedrooms, three bathrooms, and a kitchen almost as large as my entire West 83rd Street manse. Plus a two-car garage. Plus a front lawn and a backyard. But I tried not to think of all that.

  Anyway I had three or four hours to kill before my date with Orson Vanwinkle, so I decided to spend them cleaning. Housework is just as mechanical as needlework, but not nearly as rewarding or creative. Because you have to do it over and over; it’s never finished.

  I stripped to bikini briefs, covered my hair with a plastic shower cap, and set to work. Straightening. Washing. Vacuuming. Dusting. What a drag! Is there anything duller? I’ve heard that some women enjoy it. Nuts. The only good thing about it is that it’s brainless; you can slave away while your thoughts and dreams take off.

  I didn’t spend those three hours puzzling the conundrum of the missing Demaretion; I spent them comparing the personalities and physical attractions of Al Georgio and Jack Smack. I even went so far, I confess, to say aloud “Mary Lou Georgio” and “Mary Lou Smack.”

  But you must understand that I was unmarried, pushing the Big Three-Oh, and beginning to wonder where I’d be in five or ten years. Still manless with only an ailanthus tree for company? So sure I fantasized, imagining all kinds of crazy scenarios.

  It seemed to me that Al was a true-blue kind of guy, solid and steady. I knew I could trust him, and, if I needed anything, he’d be there. But his job! He told me it came first; it was the reason for his divorce. How could any woman deal with that kind of competition?

  Jack was a tap dancer, slight and debonair. The only way a wife could keep him from straying would be to nail him to the bed. The guy was a conscienceless Romeo; I just knew it. But still, he was soo handsome and had so much sex appeal it was coming out his ears. You couldn’t fault him for that; it’s the way he was.

  So I spent those housecleaning hours in silly reveries, enjoying every minute. You must realize that having one man in my life to daydream about was an Event. Two men were a Blessing. I didn’t count Orson Vanwinkle; he was a Disaster.

  It came time for me to shower (again) and get ready for my meeting with the Disaster. I won’t bore you with the problems women of my height have in dressing attractively. Hobart Juliana gave me the best advice: Keep it simple. Solid colors. No plaids, no patterns. Avoid ruffles, ribbons, bows, and little girl fanciness. Stick to a chemise silhouette that hints of what’s underneath but doesn’t reveal. And if you’ve got no boobs (I hadn’t—to speak of), show your back. I had a good strong, muscled back; I knew it. Sometimes I wished I could go through life in reverse.

  Anyway, for my cocktail date with Vanwinkle, I wore a loose sheath of black silk crepe. Cut high in front and low enough in back so that a bra strap would have shown if I had worn one—which I didn’t. Also, black lace pantyhose, and a single strand of carved wooden beads I had bought in a Mexican place in Greenwich Village. They were kitschy, but I liked them.

  I must have done something right, because when I showed up at the Four Seasons’ bar (fifteen minutes late—deliberately), Orson Vanwinkle almost fell off his barstool to greet me.

  “Hey, hey,” he said, with a lip-smacking grin, “you look ravishing—and if there weren’t any people around, I would.”

  He leaned forward and upward to kiss my cheek while I wondered how many times he had used that line.

  It didn’t take me long to realize he was smashed: eyes slightly out of focus, speech a bit slurred, tottery on his feet—and even wavering when he was sitting down. That must have been some business lunch.

  He was working on a big drink: dark brown liquid on the rocks. I didn’t know what it was, but it looked lethal. I decided that if I was going to get any information out of him, I better do it quickly before he became comatose.

  “What’ll you have, sweetie?” he asked, putting a heavy hand on my knee. “I’m having a double cognac to settle the old tumtum. Join me?”

  “Just a glass of white wine, please.”

  He snapped his fingers at the bartender. I hate it when men do that.

  When my drink was served, he insisted on clinking his glass against mine. “Here’s to us,” he burbled. “I have the feeling this is going to be the beginning of a beautiful friendship.”

  He was such an oozy character I could hardly stand it.

  “Mr. Vanwinkle—” I started, but he interrupted by putting a finger on my lips. That was nice. I wanted to run
out immediately and get a shot of penicillin.

  “Orson, chick,” he said. “Call me Orson. Or better yet, Horsy. That’s what my best friends call me.”

  “Why Horsy?”

  He giggled. “It’s a long, dirty story. I’d tell you, but I don’t know you well enough—yet.”

  I stared at him, thinking he wasn’t a bad-looking man, despite that beaky nose. He was beautifully shaved—something I always noticed about men—and his olive skin looked like felt. He dressed expensively, with a lot of gold glitter. Actually he would be a reasonably attractive package—if only he could learn to keep his big fat mouth shut.

  “Orson,” I said, “the theft of the Demaretion has really upset me, and I’d like to see it cleared up. I’ve been put on leave of absence until the crook is caught, so I have a personal interest in getting the case solved. The detectives seem to think someone in the household might be responsible. I wanted to ask you: Have there been any other robberies? Like silver, plate, cash, bric-a-brac—things like that?”

  He bleared at me a moment, then squinched his eyes as if he was thinking deeply. “Noo,” he said finally, “can’t recall anything recent. About five years ago a temporary maid lifted fifty bucks from Mama Havistock’s purse, but there haven’t been any rip-offs since then that I know about.”

  I shook my head in mock amazement. “That’s a very unusual family.”

  “Unusual?” he said, and moved his lumpy hand on my knee a little farther up. “Bunch of wackos. I’m related, you know, but not on that side of the family, thank God. They should all be going to a shrink. Maybe they could get a wholesale rate. Ready for another drink?”

  “Not yet, thank you. But you go ahead.”

  He snapped his fingers again, and when the bartender turned, pointed to his empty glass. He watched the brandy being poured with the careful attention of the serious drinker. Then he picked up the filled glass and sipped delicately, demonstrating that he was an epicure and not a boozer. Hah!

  “Oh, I don’t think the Havistock family is that bad,” I said. “Of course, I haven’t met all of them. Vanessa, for instance.”

  “A slut,” he said darkly. “She is not one of my favorite human beings.”

  “I’ve heard some wild stories about her.”

  “You can believe all of them, honey. Did you know she’s got a tattoo?”

  “You’re joking?”

  He held up a palm. “Scout’s honor. I haven’t seen it myself, but I have it on very good authority. An informed source, you might say. I won’t tell you where it’s, uh, located; you wouldn’t believe it. Slut. She thinks she invented sex and has a patent on it. She leaves me cold.”

  Which meant, I supposed, that at some time in their relationship Vanessa Havistock had rejected Orson Vanwinkle. He reminded me of men who, when a woman rebuffs their advances, assume the woman is a lesbian. Of course. The fact that the guy has bad breath, a complexion like the surface of the moon, and wears white socks has nothing to do with it.

  “Yes,” I said thoughtfully, “I heard she comes on strong.”

  “To men, women, doorknobs, and cocker spaniels,” he said with a nasty laugh. “She even came on to Ross Minchen, who could be president of the International Association of Nerds. But the old man soon put an end to that.”

  It was the second time I had heard that story; Nettie had told me the same thing at lunch.

  “So there’s nothing between them now?” I asked. “Vanessa and Ross Minchen?”

  “Nada,” he said. “At parties he still sniffs around her like a yak in heat, but she won’t give him a tumble. Listen, the old man told her to lay off, and he controls the bucks. She’s smart enough not to cross him.”

  So now I had discovered what Jack Smack had asked me to find out. It was time to do some sleuthing on my own—before the blitzed Horsy Vanwinkle fell off his bar-stool.

  But I had waited too long. He stood suddenly, swaying, and drained his new drink, just chugalugged it straight down. I thought, next stop Intensive Care.

  “Let’s go,” he said thickly.

  “Go?” I said, Little Miss Innocence. “Where?”

  “My place,” he said with a wolfish grin. “We’ll listen to some Sinatra tapes and let nature take its course.”

  “Don’t you have to get back to work?”

  “I work when I feel like it,” he said, boasting, “and I play when I feel like it.”

  Dunk, I told myself, you’ve got problems.

  I won’t tell you all the aggravations of the next hour. Well, yes, I will tell you: Getting him to pay the bill at Four Seasons’ bar—with a credit card, of course; I was a business expense. Then half-supporting him down the stairs to the street. His Juicy Fruit cologne overwhelmed me.

  Then, outside, it took forever to get a cab, while Horsy leaned against the Seagram Building and sang “My Way” in a froggy tenor to the great amusement of passersby. And then in the taxi, he refused to tell the driver, or me, where he lived. I finally had to pluck his wallet from his inside jacket pocket as he giggled and tried to embrace me. I got his address from a card that testified he was a paid-up member of Club Exotica—whatever that was.

  When I told the driver our destination, on East 85th Street, he said, “You sure you want to go there, lady? I think I should deliver this nut to Bellevue.”

  There wasn’t enough cash in the wallet to pay the cab fare, so I had to make up the difference. I wasn’t in a happy mood when I dragged him out of the taxi and implored him to straighten up and fly right. As a matter of fact, I came close to leaving him in a collapsed heap on the sidewalk and letting him survive on his own. But I was determined to find out about Archibald Havistock’s signet ring.

  He lived on the third floor of a six-story gray stone townhouse. Getting him to fish out his keys from his trouser pocket was a Keystone Kops comedy in itself, with grapplings, staggerings, and foiled embraces.

  I finally got the keys, opened the front door, and wrestled us both inside. There was an elevator, thank God, and I propped him against one wall while we went up. More strugglings and fumblings outside his door, but at last we were inside and I had succeeded in getting this calamity safely home and still conscious.

  “Got to see—” he said with a glassy grin, and went rushing for what I hoped was the John. Maybe, I prayed, the idiot would upchuck the business lunch and all that brandy and would return to me sober and chastened. No such luck.

  Meanwhile I looked around at a trendy pad right out of Playboy. Stainless steel, glass, director’s chairs in blond leather, imitation Motherwells on white walls, zebra rugs, enough electronic equipment to blow a dozen fuses, a fully equipped bar with wet sink—well, you get the picture. I didn’t peek into the bedroom, but if it had mirrors on the ceiling I wouldn’t have been a bit surprised.

  It wasn’t the glitz that shook me so much as the cost of all that flash in a townhouse on East 85th Street. Either Vanwinkle was making a giant salary as secretary to Archibald Havistock, or he was independently wealthy, or he had a secondary source of income that paid very well indeed.

  And yet, when I asked Natalie Havistock if there was anything doing between Vanessa and Orson Vanwinkle, she said she doubted it. “He’s got no money, so Vanessa wouldn’t be interested.” That’s what Nettie had said.

  Jack Smack had been right: There was something cheesy about the man.

  Mr. Roquefort himself came staggering out of the bedroom, and I didn’t know whether to laugh or to cry. He had put on a red velvet smoking jacket with black satin lapels and sash, a silk ascot clumsily knotted at his throat, a paisley square spilling out of his breast pocket. I suppose it was his seduction uniform, but with his loopy smile and shambling gait, he looked like a clown.

  “Now then…” he said, “first things first…”

  I thought he might fall over at any moment, but he navigated his way to the bar without bumping into any of the furniture. He poured himself a tumbler of brandy and a beer stein of warm white wine f
or me. If he had any ice available, he either forgot it or didn’t want any dilution.

  He collapsed on a couch shaped like two enormous red lips and patted the cushion beside him. “You sit here, babe,” he said.

  I took my schooner of wine and sat on the lips—at a wary distance. Sitting on that crazy couch was an unsettling experience. I expected the mouth to open up at any moment and swallow me down.

  “Music,” he said, looking about vaguely. “Sinatra tapes.”

  “Later,” I said. “Why don’t we just talk for a while.”

  “About what?” he said, looking at me blearily.

  I told you he wore a lot of gold glitter, and he did. Chunky little ingot links on his cuffs, a Piaget Polo with gold strap, a gleaming identification bracelet on the other wrist—the chain heavy enough to anchor the QE2. And on the third finger of his right hand, a square gold ring set with a sparkling diamond.

  That was my cue.

  “What a beautiful ring you have,” I said.

  He looked down at it. “Two carats,” he said, nodding. “Flawless.”

  “You do all right,” I said, laughing lightly. “And all Mr. Havistock has is that sad little signet ring.”

  “Oh, hell, he doesn’t wear that. It’s a clunker. A piece of junk. I think Mama gave it to him when they got married. He just keeps it around.”

  “Keeps it around?” I said. “Where? If it has such sentimental value for him, you’d think he’d wear it or keep it locked up.”

  “Nah,” Orson Vanwinkle said. “It’s either on his desk in the library or maybe in his jewelry box in the bedroom. He’s not that sentimental.”

  Which told me what I hadn’t wanted to hear: Anyone in that freaky family would have easy access to the signet ring.

  “Listen,” Horsy said, “you’re not drinking. You still have your drinkee-poo. Come on, let the good times roll. Let’s have a party.”

  “Sure,” I said, “why not? But let me take a look at your marvelous apartment.”

  I rose, wandered behind him, and succeeded in dumping half my wine in the planter of an inoffensive ficus tree.