The Eighth Commandment

by Lawrence Sanders

  He clapped his hands together with mild delight, and this time his smile had real warmth. “Very, very clever of you, Miss Bateson. And those so-called professional detectives still haven’t grasped the significance of the ring. My wife is right; we did well to employ you. You are a very intelligent, perceptive young lady, and I now have high hopes that you may succeed if Georgio and Smack fail. My only objection is that you did not come to me directly with your questions about my signet ring instead of asking Mr. Vanwinkle.”

  I dabbed at my lips with a pink linen napkin, so starched it could have been balanced on its edge. “I didn’t want to bother you, Mr. Havistock.”

  “No,” he said, shaking his great, leonine head, “I will not accept that. When my wife and I asked you to investigate members of our family, we were quite willing that we—my wife and I—should be questioned as well as the others. I want to make that perfectly clear to you: Mrs. Havistock and I expect no preferential treatment whatsoever.”

  “All right,” I said, pouring him and myself more coffee, “I’ll go along with that, and I’m happy to hear you say it. Now, about the signet ring…Is there one—or more?”

  “Only one, to my knowledge.”

  “Do you wear it?”

  “Very infrequently. But I value it—a gift from my wife.”

  “Where do you keep it?”

  “Sometimes here,” he said, pulling open a small drawer at the side of his desk. “Sometimes in my jewelry case in the bedroom. That’s where it is at present.”

  “So anyone in the household might have borrowed it temporarily?”

  He sighed. “I’m afraid so. I use it rarely—to seal documents and things of that sort. It’s never locked up or hidden. Yes, anyone who knew of its existence would have easy access to it.”

  I gave him a wan smile. “Just as they had easy access to the two unused display cases in your bedroom closet.”

  “Yes. That, too. I can’t tell you how painful I find all this, Miss Bateson, but the more I learn about the crime, the more I tend to agree with Georgio and Smack: a family member was involved. It is not a pleasant prospect to contemplate.”

  “You want the Demaretion back, don’t you?” I asked.

  He looked at me in astonishment. “Of course. It is a glorious work of art.”

  “I agree. I don’t want it to disappear into some private collection where it’ll never be seen again.”

  “You think that’s what will happen?”

  “Unless we find it first. Mr. Havistock, how would you characterize your relations with your family? Intimate? Close? Distant? Cold?”

  He looked at me queerly, those azure eyes glittering. “I have tried to be a good paterfamilias, and I would be the first to say I haven’t always succeeded. My own father was a stern, despotic man, and I suspect I learned too much from him. Times change, and I should have changed with them, but I wouldn’t or couldn’t. More harshness, more discipline, was not the answer. I should have been more sympathetic, more understanding when the children were young. It was my failure. It was my fault.”

  Suddenly he was no longer the complete, self-assured man but, by admitting guilt and weakness, someone much more human and likable.

  “I have no children,” I said, “so I’m not qualified to give advice. But the time comes, I suppose, when you have to kick them out of the nest and hope they can fly.”

  “Yes,” he said sadly, “that time comes. Most of mine seem to have dropped—like stones.”

  “I think you’re exaggerating,” I told him boldly. “They may not have come up to your expectations, but they are living their own lives. You must allow them to make their own mistakes. How else can they learn?”

  He didn’t answer, but I had the feeling that he was aware of the frailties of all his children—and his nephew as well—and spent too much time brooding on what he might have done differently to ensure their success and happiness.

  I cabbed home from that meeting with a lot to ponder. But I resolutely finished the Sunday Times, wishing I had accepted Al’s invitation to spend the day with him and his daughter. Then I did some laundry, slurped a blueberry yogurt, and prepared to spend the evening watching TV, with maybe a brief trip out into the living world to have a hamburger or a slice of anchovy pizza.

  But I canceled all those noble plans and did something exceedingly foolish. I phoned Jack Smack, really hoping he wouldn’t be in. But he was.

  “Hey, Dunk!” he said, sounding genuinely glad to hear from me. “How’re you doing?”

  “All right. I’m not interrupting, am I?”

  “Hell, no. I’m just sitting here counting the walls.”

  I wanted him to know this was a professional call—nothing personal. “Something came up on the Demaretion case, and I thought you’d be interested.”

  “Oh?” he said. “Maybe we shouldn’t talk about it on the phone. Listen, Dunk, have you had dinner yet?”

  “Not yet,” I said, hating myself.

  “There’s a new place over on the West Side that’s supposed to have the best barbecued ribs in town. Want to try it?”

  “No, no,” I said hastily. “Pork makes me break out in splotches.”

  “Okay,” he said equably, “then how about this scenario: I’ll run out and pick up a couple of strip steaks and Idaho potatoes. I’ve got the makings for a green salad. Meanwhile you cab down here—I’ll pay the freight. I’m in a loft in SoHo. We’ll have dinner, talk about the Demaretion, and after that, we’ll let nature take its course.”

  I didn’t like that last; it scared me.

  “All right,” I said faintly.

  His loft looked like a factory: High Tech with everything in metal and Lucite. But he had a fully equipped kitchen—the largest compartment in the place. (The bathroom was the only enclosed room.) The bed, I noticed nervously, seemed to be double futons on the floor. Soft, plump, and lascivious.

  He had a microwave, and fifteen minutes after I arrived he served up a yummy meal on a table of milk glass supported on black steel sawhorses. He also provided a bottle of super Cabernet. This lad knew how to live. Sour cream and chives with the potatoes, of course. He didn’t miss a trick.

  While we gobbled our food, I told him about the signet ring, and what Vanwinkle and Archibald Havistock had to say about it.

  He stopped eating long enough to slap a palm onto the tabletop. “God damn it!” he said wrathfully. “I missed that, and I’ll bet Al Georgio did, too.” Then he looked at me admiringly. “Dunk, that was good thinking. You’ve got a talent for investigation.”

  “Well…maybe. But it doesn’t amount to anything. I mean, anyone in the family could have used that ring.”

  “I know,” he said, “but I should have seen it. I’m supposed to be the professional. Anything else?”

  “No,” I said, deciding not to tell him about the Minchens’ hobby. “Nothing.”

  “Well…” he said, working on his salad. (Too much salt in that salad.) “We got another letter from our anonymous crook. The guy wants two hundred grand for the Demaretion. No way!”

  “What will you do now, Jack?”

  “Haggle.”

  “How will you do that? By letter? Phone calls?”

  “This guy is very clever. He sends us print-free letters from different zones in Manhattan. Practically impossible to trace. We reply by coded Death Notices in the Times. I know it all sounds like cloak-and-dagger stuff, but it works. In case you’re interested, we’re going to offer him twenty-five thousand.”

  “You think he’ll accept?”

  “No,” Jack said, “I don’t think he will. He’s got us by the short hairs, and he knows it. We’ll probably settle for fifty Gs—around there. Meanwhile I’ll keep gnawing at it. I may catch up with him before the payoff. Well…enough about business. I have some chocolate tofutti in the fridge. Interested?”

  “Thanks,” I said, “but not really.”

  “Me neither. But I also have some Rémy Napoléon—and that I am
interested in.”

  “Jack, do you eat like this every day?”

  “Of course not,” he said. “I’d be a balloon if I did. I usually thaw something frozen. One of those complete gourmet dinners that tastes like glue. But once or twice a week I like to cook.”

  “For yourself?” I asked.

  “Sometimes,” he said, giving me that wisenheimer grin that implied sexual goings-on and probably didn’t mean a damned thing—I told myself.

  We collapsed on those yielding futons and sipped our cognacs from small jelly jars.

  “I have Tiffany snifters,” he said, “but occasionally I like to use these, to remind me where I came from.”

  “And where was that?”

  “Poverty,” he said, laughing shortly. “I’ve made it, Dunk—so far—but I want to keep remembering the time when a peanut butter sandwich was a treat.”

  I had absolutely no idea if he was telling the truth or putting me on. I did know the man was a consummate actor. He told amusing stories in a dozen dialects. His movements could be as graceful as a ballet dancer’s steps or so gauche that they broke me up. He seemed driven to entertain, and I must say he succeeded. I never enjoyed myself as much. Couldn’t stop giggling.

  “You know,” he said, taking the empty jelly jar from my fingers and putting it aside, “a friend of mine—a great cocksman—once told me that the best way to seduce a woman is to make her laugh. Do you think that’s true?”

  I considered. “It’s a start,” I said.

  The problem was that when we were naked, flouncing around on those pads, he was still the entertainer. I didn’t want to think of how many women he had been with to learn all the things he knew. He certainly educated me. He was such an expert—but somehow divorced, not really involved. Like an actor who has played the same role too many times.

  All those reflections came later. At the time, I was whirled away, brain detonated, unable to concentrate on anything but his physical beauty and skill and what he was doing to me. I was one long, throbbing nerve end, and he knew how to tickle it. What a craftsman he was! I loved him. I hated him.

  He drove me home in his Jaguar.

  15

  I WAS BEGINNING TO learn how detectives worked. You couldn’t sit at home or in your office and wait for people to come in and tell you things; you had to have the gall to go after them, pry, ask embarrassing questions, nag them, and generally make a nuisance of yourself.

  I could do all that. Not only was I being paid for it (plus expenses), but I really loved the Demaretion and resented its theft. Also, someone had made a fool out of me—getting me to sign a receipt for an empty display case—so I had a personal interest in this affair. Revenge!

  I retained that dauntless mood while I phoned Mrs. Mabel Havistock on Monday morning, asking if I might see her as soon as possible. If she was surprised or discomfited, her voice didn’t reveal it. She said she’d see me at precisely two o’clock that afternoon—in royal tones suggesting that I was being granted an audience with the queen. I thanked her meekly. So much for fearlessness.

  My bravura mood got another jolt when the mail was delivered a little after noon. Three catalogues, bills from New York Telephone and Con Edison, and a plain white envelope. Just a typed Mary Lou Bateson on the front, with my address. No hint of the sender.

  Inside, a single sheet of white paper. Typed in the middle in capital letters: LAY OFF—OR ELSE. No signature.

  Very melodramatic, and very scary. My first reaction was an instant resolve to take the first plane back to Des Moines and spend the rest of my life practicing dunk shots in the driveway.

  Second reaction: fury. What son of a bitch was trying to frighten me off the Demaretion case? How dare he! Third reaction: Call the police, which I did. It took me almost a half-hour to locate Detective Al Georgio. I told him about the anonymous threat.

  “I’ll be damned,” he said slowly. “Plain white paper?”

  “Yes.”

  “The whole thing typed?”

  “Yes.”

  “You handled it?”

  “Of course I handled it. How else could I read it? I tore open the envelope, took out the sheet of paper, unfolded it, and read it. How could I do that without handling it?”

  “All right, all right,” he said soothingly, “don’t get your balls in an uproar. I’ll pick it up and have it dusted. And you know what we’ll get? Zip, zero, and zilch. Sounds to me like the kind of letters Finkus, Holding has been getting: plain paper, no prints, typed on an Olympia standard. Well, we’ll see…You know what this means, don’t you, Dunk? You’re getting close.”

  “Close to what?” I wailed. “Al, I haven’t found out a damned thing.”

  “What have you been doing? Who have you talked to?”

  Then, because I had already told Jack Smack and was trying very hard not to favor either of them, I told Al about the signet ring and Vanwinkle’s and Archibald Havistock’s answers to my questions. His reaction was the same as Jack’s.

  “Jesus Christ!” he said disgustedly. “I’m a dolt. I should have picked up on that. Nice work, Dunk. But they both said everyone in the family had access to the ring?”

  “That’s right.”

  “Well, it’s hard to believe the ring business was enough to trigger your black-spot letter. It must be something else.”

  He paused and for a moment I was tempted to tell him how Roberta and Ross Minchen got their jollies. Then I decided that since it had nothing to do with the Demaretion heist, Al had no need to know.

  “What are you doing today?” he asked me.

  “Seeing Mrs. Havistock in about an hour. I want to talk to everyone who was in the apartment on that morning.”

  “That sounds sensible. And safe enough.”

  “After I talk to her, it’ll only leave Ruby Querita. I’ll get to her next.”

  He was silent. Then:

  “Dunk, watch your back. Don’t press too hard. I don’t like that letter you got. It scares me.”

  “Well, it sure scares the hell out of me.”

  “Want to move into a hotel? Change your phone number? I can’t provide ʼround-the-clock protection; you know that.”

  “No, I’ll go along just the way I’ve been doing. Maybe I’ve heard something that threatens the crook—but what it could be, I have no idea. Al, how was your day with your daughter?”

  “Wonderful,” he said. “Just perfect. I told her about you. She said she’d like to meet you.”

  “That’s sweet. And I’d like to meet her. Next time you see her—okay?”

  “You better believe it. And Dunk, do be careful.”

  “I intend to be.”

  “You’ve got my home phone number and where I can be reached during the day. Don’t be bashful; call me anytime.”

  “Thanks, Al,” I said gratefully. “I’m hoping I won’t get myself in a crisis situation, but if I do, it’s nice to know you’re there.”

  “I’m here,” he said.

  What a splendid June day it was! Rare sky, beamy sun, kissing breeze. Manhattan isn’t all graffiti and dog droppings, you know. Sometimes the light and the shining towers can make you weep with pleasure. It was like that when I started out early and strode across Central Park to the East Side. I didn’t even look behind me. Nothing could frighten me on a day like that.

  Except possibly the matriarch of the Havistock clan. If Mrs. Mabel didn’t have bones in her corset, she sat as if she had: stiffly erect, spine straight. I wondered how long it had been since she had allowed that spine to touch the back of a chair. All in all, a very stern, domineering matron, and to avoid being completely intimidated, I had to keep reminding myself that this ogress had been the one who suggested my employment as the Havistocks’ private investigator.

  I had been admitted to the apartment by Ruby Querita, who gave me a small smile, signifying, I supposed, that she now recognized me as a friend of the family. But halfway down that gloomy corridor, Orson Vanwinkle brushed her aside and
took over as usher.

  “Hi, doll,” he said with his lupine grin. He also stroked my cheek, and I knew blossoms would never bloom there again. “Madame Defarge is waiting for you,” he said, jerking a thumb toward the living room. “Going to have a nice chin-chin?”

  I nodded.

  “About what?”

  “About who stole the Demaretion,” I said, looking at him directly.

  “Oh, that old thing,” he said, not at all disconcerted. “Just a hunk of metal as far as I’m concerned. The insurance company will pay off; you’ll see.” Then he leaned closer and lowered his voice. “When are you and I going to have another scene?”

  “Scene?”

  “You know—fun and games.”

  I swear the man was certifiable. But that didn’t make him any less dangerous. I walked away from him and entered the living room where I found her majesty sitting bolt upright on one of those loathsome brown velvet couches. She graciously beckoned me to sit beside her. She was wearing a lavender scent—what else? I would have bet her dresser drawers were packed with sachets.

  “I don’t like your hair,” she said, staring. “You really must do something with it.”

  “I know,” I said miserably. “I intend to have it styled one of these days.”

  “Do,” she said. “I can give you the name of a good man. Now then, what did you wish to speak to me about?”

  Not exactly a propitious beginning, but I plunged right in, explaining that I was interviewing everyone who was present in the apartment on the morning the Demaretion was taken.

  “I have already related my activities on that morning to Detective Georgio. You were present. I answered all his questions.”

  “His questions, ma’am. Mine are of a more personal nature.”

  She looked at me coldly. “Such as?”

  “Detective Georgio and insurance investigator John Smack are convinced that a member of your family took part in the theft. Both are experienced men and would not make such an accusation lightly. Would you care to name one or more family members you think might possibly be involved?”

  She made a sudden, distraught movement of one hand: a wild, jerky wave. “I will not point the finger of suspicion at anyone. Certainly none of my kin.”