“Then why did you have anything to do with him?”
He paused in his eating to stare up at me and rub a thumb and forefinger together. “Mon-eee. The mon-eee, sweet mama. That guy leaked green. You think I’d have given him the time of day if it wasn’t for the gelt? I got big plans, and big plans need venture capital. That schmuck came up with the funds.”
“And Nettie found out?”
“Yeah, she found out. She was the one who introduced us, but she didn’t know he was a butterfly. She just thought he was a nutty drunk with an open wallet. Listen, Dunk, I want you to know—I didn’t scrag him. And none of my lads did either.”
“I believe you.”
“Why should I want to knock off the golden goose? Someone else chilled him, and I really grieved. But only because the bank was closed. You dig? I’m telling you like it is.”
“I believe you,” I repeated.
“So…” he said, motioning the waitress over to refill our coffee cups, “my big problem now is Nettie. She means a lot to me.”
“Does she?”
“I kid you not. I want to tell her how I feel, but I can’t get through to her. I call her private number, but someone else answers and won’t put her on. They got her sewed up.”
“Do you blame them?”
“I guess not. I’m not the all-American boy they figured she’d grab. But, at the same time, look at it from my point of view. I really do have a thing for her and want to tell her so. That business with Vanwinkle was just that—business. All I want to do is say to her how I feel. Then, if she tells me to get lost, I’ll get lost, and that’ll be the end of that, I swear.”
“What do you want from me? What can I do?”
“Just call her. They’ll let you talk to her. Tell her I’ll be at the 787 number all afternoon. She knows what it is. If she wants to call me, that’d be great. If she doesn’t, that’s her decision, and I’ll abide by it. Will you do that?”
I thought about it a moment. “All right,” I said, “I’ll try. But she may not be in.”
“Keep trying,” he urged. “I’ll be at the 787 number afternoons for the next few days.”
I sat back, wiped my lips with a paper napkin, stifled a small belch. “Tell me,” I said, “where was Orson Vanwinkle getting all his money?”
“Beats the shit out of me,” he said. “Nettie and I used to talk about it. I mean he was a secretary—right? But he had cash like you wouldn’t believe. And he was laying off a lot of it on that Miss Cuddles of his. Maybe he was printing it in his bathroom—who knows? But he never had the shorts, I can tell you that.”
I looked at him. “You didn’t like the man, he disgusted you, but you went along for the money?”
He looked at me just as directly. “That’s right, sweet mama. If you believe in something strong enough, then nothing you have to do makes you turn back. You got a goal, and that’s all that matters.”
“What’s your goal?” I asked him.
“A small thing,” he said, flashing his teeth again. “I just want to remake the world, that’s all.”
“Lots of luck,” I said.
“You make your own luck,” he said. “I learned that a long time ago. You’ll call Nettie?”
“I’ll try.”
“Good enough,” he said. “I do thank you. Something else I’ve got to ask you: Are you tall or am I shrinking?”
I laughed. “It’s me,” I said. “Turn you off?”
“Au contraire,” he said. “If it wasn’t for Nettie, I’d love to shinny up you. But things being what they are, that’ll have to remain a wild fantasy.”
“You better believe it,” I told him.
When I got home, I called the Havistock apartment and asked to speak to Natalie. Ruby Querita answered the phone and said that her parents had taken Nettie to their family physician for a checkup; they would probably all be home in an hour or so. I asked her to tell Natalie I had phoned and to please call me back.
Then I settled down to read my morning Times. But I found my eyes rising from the paper to stare at the wall. What Akbar El Raschid had told me was pretty much what I had already figured, but where was Orson Vanwinkle’s money coming from? My next step, I resolved, was to brace Archibald Havistock directly and ask him how much he was paying his private secretary. He might refuse to answer. But that in itself would be a kind of answer, wouldn’t it?
Natalie did call back, almost two hours later, and said she was feeling a lot better, her mind had cleared, and she was determined to solve her problems one by one, instead of being overwhelmed by all of them at once.
“Good for you,” I said. “That’s the way to do it. Now I don’t feel so guilty about giving you another problem.”
I told her about my breakfast with her boyfriend and what he had asked me to do.
“So,” I said, “if you want to talk to him, he’ll be at the 787 number this afternoon. It’s up to you.”
“How did he look?” she said eagerly.
“He looked all right. The same way he looked when I met him at the party.”
“Isn’t he the most beautiful man you’ve ever seen?” she said breathlessly.
“He’s very handsome.”
“That crazy little beard of his,” she said. “It drives me wild.”
I had the unsettling feeling that since the Demaretion had been stolen, I had wandered into never-never land.
So far, most of my detecting activities had been limited to asking people questions and trying to make sense out of what they told me. I figured that’s the way most professional investigators worked. I mean, how many detectives go crawling across a rug on their hands and knees with a big magnifying glass looking for clues? Interrogation was the name of the game.
But my questioning of the principals involved had resulted in more puzzles than solutions. One of the things that still bugged me was that East 65th Street brownstone apartment. Lenore Wolfgang had given me a facile explanation of why she rented it. But it didn’t account for Vanessa Havistock entering the building.
Apparently Al Georgio had accepted the attorney’s story. At least he hadn’t told me differently. But then there were a lot of things I hadn’t told him. I decided I’d try to find out a little more about Wolfgang’s pied-à-terre.
So I cabbed over to the East Side on a muggy July afternoon, the whole city one big sauna. But I was too busy concocting a scenario to be bothered by the heat. What I planned to do was locate the superintendent of the building, and charm, wheedle, or bribe him into telling me if anyone occupied Lenore Wolfgang’s apartment on a regular basis. Then I intended to describe Vanessa Havistock and ask if he had ever seen her on the premises.
Full of confidence, I strode fearlessly into the vestibule of the brownstone to check the number of the Wolfgang apartment. Instant shock. No Wolfgang listed. The space her name label had occupied was now just a little strip of bare brass. I stared at it, not believing.
It took me a few moments to recover. What was going on? To one side of the bell plate was a small sign: RING BASEMENT BELL FOR SUPER. I looked around; no basement bell. Then, getting my wits together, I went outside again and down three steps into the areaway. There I found the super’s bell, pressed it, and improvised a fast new scam while I waited.
There were two doors, the outer a grille of forged iron in an attractive foliage pattern. It was locked. The inner door, a solid wood slab, was the one that was opened. The gorilla in a man’s suit who stood there glared at me through the iron grille. He had the beginnings of a beard, but I didn’t think it was deliberate; he had just neglected to shave—for almost three days.
“Good afternoon,” I said, smiling brightly. “I heard there’s an apartment available in this building.”
“You heard wrong,” he growled. “Nothing available.”
He began to close his door.
“Wait a minute,” I cried desperately. “Didn’t Lenore Wolfgang move?”
“Yeah, she moved,” he acknowledged
. “But it’s been rented. Lady, we got fifty people on a waiting list. At least.”
I opened my shoulder bag, fished in my purse, pulled out a ten-dollar bill. I folded it lengthwise, poked it through the iron grille. He stared at it.
“What’s that for?” he demanded. “I can’t get you on the waiting list. You got to go to the owner. His name and address are in the vestibule.” He pronounced it “vestabool.”
I waggled the ten-dollar bill. “I don’t want to get on the list,” I said. “I just want a little information.”
His hand struck like an adder, plucking the bill from my fingers.
“Yeah?” he said. “What?”
“When did Lenore Wolfgang move?”
“Coupla days ago. The new tenant moves in tomorrow. That’s it?”
“Not for ten bucks, that’s not it,” I said indignantly. “Did you ever see a woman use Wolfgang’s apartment? Tall, full-bodied, long black hair, lots of makeup and jewelry.”
Something came into his eyes, a shifting of depth, a certain shrewd knowing. “Yeah,” he said, “I seen a woman like that. Plenty times. A real looker.”
“She used the Wolfgang apartment?”
He nodded.
“You ever see a man go up there when she was here?”
He stared at me. “No,” he said, “I never seen no man with her.”
He slammed the inner door. From which I concluded that someone had paid him more than I had. He was an honorable man—in his way.
I went home via bus, which was a mistake; it was a long, miserable, fume-choked trip. But I had a lot to think about. Vanessa had been using Wolfgang’s place, as I originally suspected. And about a week after Al Georgio queried the building’s owner, Lenore had given up her apartment—which, in Manhattan, is an act akin to hara-kiri.
The fact that Vanessa had been playing around came as no great surprise; I never figured her to be a one-man woman. And I couldn’t see her having a lesbian relationship, especially with Lenore Wolfgang, who wore chewing gum on her shoe. No, Vanessa was having trysts with a man—or men—in that apartment. Was that where the money was coming from to pay for the jewelry, the summer home, that sumptuous Park Avenue apartment? Interesting idea: Vanessa reverting to loitering for the purpose of prostitution.
All this was supposition, of course—pure guesswork. But it did fit the facts, and the longer I considered it, the more logical it seemed. There was only one thing wrong: I couldn’t see where it had any connection with the disappearance of the Demaretion. I should have considered a little longer and thought a little harder.
No phone calls for the rest of the day—which made me irritable. I wanted Al Georgio and Jack Smack to volunteer vital information that would enable me to solve the mystery to the applause of all. I realized how unfair that was—I wasn’t telling them what I had discovered—but still it rankled. I was an amateur sleuth, and they were experienced professionals. You’d think they’d drop a few crumbs my way, wouldn’t you?
I got myself in such a tizzy thinking about it that it took two hours of knitting to calm me down. Then I could laugh at my anger and admit that I better plan on solving the puzzle by myself or never solve it at all. Al and Jack had their own jobs and responsibilities. And I was sure they wanted the glory of breaking the case as much as I did.
That night, my stupid air conditioner making a racket, I lay naked between the sheets, reading the latest how-to book on “fulfilling your latent potential.” I kept flipping the pages, looking for the magic secret that would enable me to become successful, irresistible, and shorter. I didn’t find it.
I was listening to WQXR on my bedside radio with half an ear. I decided that after the midnight news, I’d turn off the radio, switch off the light, and wait for sleep.
Later, I was to reflect that I had been present when the Demaretion disappeared, Al Georgio had telephoned to tell me of Vanwinkle’s death, and I had read of Natalie’s attempted suicide in the daily press. Now I was to learn of the latest tragedy from the radio while lying naked in bed reading a self-improvement book. If that’s not running the gamut, I don’t know what is.
It was just a brief mention; the news announcer made no big deal of it. He merely said that the body of a young woman, apparently strangled, had been found in an East 66th Street apartment. The victim had been identified as Dolly LeBaron. The police said the slain woman had reportedly been a close friend of Orson Vanwinkle, whose recent murder was still under investigation.
After the initial impact of those words, I found I was weeping. That poor, silly girl with her red bikini and doomed dreams. She had told me I was her closest girlfriend, which was ridiculous, but now, hearing of her violent death, I thought it just might have been true, and wept the harder.
I didn’t even begin to wonder how her murder might impinge on the investigations of the Demaretion theft and/or the Vanwinkle homicide. Only one thing concerned me. I flung out of bed, dashed bareass through the apartment, turning on lights as I went.
In the kitchen, I opened the cabinet over the sink and probed in back with trembling fingers. I was searching for that package Dolly LeBaron had left in my care.
25
I READ THE GORY details in the morning papers. Dolly’s body had been discovered by neighbors who noticed her door was ajar. She was lying on her back in the living room, wearing an opened Oriental happy coat, and nothing else. Police didn’t believe she had been sexually assaulted, but awaited the autopsy for final determination.
That garish apartment was a shambles. Furniture had been overturned and slashed, closets and cupboards emptied, dresser drawers spilled, even the lid of the toilet tank removed. The killer had obviously been searching for something. (I could have told him where it was—in my kitchen.)
There was little data on Dolly’s background, other than she was from Wichita and had come to New York to seek a career on the stage. There were some snide references to what had befallen her, including a mention that she was known as a “party girl,” as if that was sufficient justification for what had been done to her.
The big angle in all the tabloid stories was her relationship with Orson Vanwinkle—both of them murdered within weeks. Dolly had been strangled and Orson shot, but the police were investigating the possibility that a single killer was responsible for both deaths. They had also found “quantities” of marijuana and cocaine in Dolly’s trashed apartment.
Her parents were flying in from Kansas to reclaim her body after the autopsy was completed.
I stared at the front-page photos of Dolly in her red bikini.
She would have liked that.
I hardly had time to breakfast, read the papers, and wonder what it all meant when I got a call from Al Georgio. He was very abrupt.
“I just talked to Jack Smack,” he said. “He’s not involved in the Vanwinkle and LeBaron kills, but he thinks they’re connected to the coin robbery. I think so, too. Maybe it’s time the three of us sat down together and compared notes. How about it?”
“Yes,” I said, “that makes sense to me. Where do you want to meet?”
“How about your place? Have any objection?”
“Of course not. When?”
“Noon today. We’ll bring something to eat and something to drink, so don’t go to any trouble.”
What they brought were three quarter-pounders and three cheeseburgers from McDonald’s, plus enough French fries to stuff a pillow. Also, a cold six-pack of Michelob Light. We sat around my cocktail table, munching and sipping while we talked.
“The way things are going,” Al said, “if we wait long enough, everyone connected with this case is going to get knocked off. Then all our worries will be over.”
“Al,” I said, “was there anything about Dolly’s murder that wasn’t in the papers?”
“Not much, except there were no signs of forced entry. So she let in someone she knew.”
“Just like Vanwinkle,” Jack said, nodding. “You’re going on the theory that it’s
the same killer?”
“Seems likely,” Al said. “Now we’ve got to go back and check everyone in Orson’s little black book to find out where they were when Dolly was dumped.”
“Was anything stolen from her apartment?” I asked him.
“The place is such a mess it’s hard to tell. It must have taken at least a half-hour to do that much damage. Can you imagine? The killer chills Dolly and then stays on the scene for thirty minutes or more, tearing up the joint. He must have been desperate.”
“You think he found what he was looking for?” Jack said.
“Who the hell knows,” Al said roughly.
“The Demaretion?” I suggested.
“Yeah,” Al said, “it could have been that. Assuming Vanwinkle copped the coin. After he was snuffed, the killer searched his place and didn’t find it. He figures Orson gave it to his girlfriend to hold for him. So the perp visits her place and goes through the whole drill again.”
“Perp?” I said.
“Perpetrator,” Al said. “Jack, what’s new on your end?”
“Not a whole hell of a lot. Our contact in Lebanon says, yeah, that Beirut coin dealer is trying to peddle a Demaretion. It seems to be the real thing. But our man wasn’t able to find out who the principal is.”
“Thin stuff,” Al said. “Dunk, you got anything?”
“Did you check out that East Sixty-fifth Street apartment?” I asked.
“I called the owner,” he said. “Yes, it’s rented by Lenore Wolfgang, Archibald Havistock’s lawyer. She keeps it for friends and out-of-town clients. I haven’t had time to dig any deeper than that.”
“I did,” I said. “I went over there yesterday. Wolfgang gave up the apartment a few days ago. But while she had it, Vanessa Havistock used it frequently. The super wouldn’t say if she was meeting a man there.”
The two men stared at me, then turned to stare at each other.
“Now what the hell does that mean?” Al said.
“Nothing,” Jack said. “It’s garbage. So Vanessa was playing around. Big deal. I can’t see it affecting anything.”
The Eighth Commandment Page 24
