The Eighth Commandment

by Lawrence Sanders

  “You’re so goddamned trusting,” he said. “I could be Attila the Hun and you wouldn’t know—or care.”

  “Will the two of you please lower your voices,” Sally said severely from the blanket. “I’m trying to take a nap and don’t wish to listen to your personal confessions.”

  “That’s a crock,” her father said, laughing. “You’re listening to every word and you love it.”

  She giggled. “You’re awful,” she said. “If you weren’t my dad, I wouldn’t put up with you.”

  “You’re stuck with me, babe,” he told her, “and I’m stuck with you. Ain’t it nice?”

  “Yes,” she said, sighing and turning over to tan her back. “It’s nice, pop.”

  “I’ll pop you,” he said in mock anger, but she just smiled and closed her eyes.

  Is there anything new you can say about a splendid July afternoon on the seashore? Warm lassitude. Lulling sound of the surf. A kissing breeze. The comfort of quiet broken by children’s shouts. So relaxing that you think your bones are going to melt.

  “I suppose,” I murmured to Al, “if we did this every day, it would get to be a bore.”

  “You believe that?”

  “No. Al, I’ve got to say something that’s really going to shock you.”

  “What’s that?”

  “I’m hungry.”

  “I am, too,” Sally yelled, leaping to her feet. “Let’s eat!”

  We moved the beach umbrella so it shaded the blanket, and we all sat on that. We gnawed the fried chicken Al had made (delicious!), spooned potato salad, and munched on celery stalks, radishes, and cherry tomatoes. Al had even remembered the salt and paper napkins. The man was a treasure.

  When we were finished, Sally surprised me—and her father—by cleaning up and taking all our refuse to the nearest trash can.

  “Oh-oh,” Al said. “She wants something.”

  “Don’t be a goop,” she said crossly. Then, in a grand manner: “I may take a walk down the beach. By myself. Just to relax—you know?”

  “Just to meet boys,” Al said. “You know?”

  “Father, sometimes you can really be gross!”

  We watched her stalk away. She hadn’t been down at the water’s edge more than a minute before we saw two boys about her own age circle about her and draw closer.

  “Will she be all right?” I asked anxiously.

  “Don’t worry about Sally,” Al advised me. “She can take care of herself.”

  “I hope so.”

  “She’ll stay close enough so I can keep an eye on her,” he said. “You’ll see.”

  She did exactly as he predicted. It was a joy to watch the young flirt at work. Running into the ocean up to her knees, dashing out with whoops of feigned horror at the chill. Laughing and hugging her elbows. Flinging her long blond hair about. The boys were enchanted.

  “Is your ex really going to get married?” I asked Al.

  He opened a second bottle of rosé. It was warmish, but we didn’t care.

  “Probably,” he said. “She’s got this regular guy. I’ve never met him, but from what I’ve heard from Sally and her mother, he’s solid enough. I mean he’s got a good job and all that. An accountant.”

  “How do you feel about it?”

  He shrugged. “It’s her life. The only thing that bothers me is that Sally will have a new father. Well, a stepfather. Maybe she’ll forget all about me.”

  “No way,” I told him. “She loves you; she’s never going to let you go.”

  “You really think so?”

  “Absolutely. Besides, you don’t wear a toupee.”

  He smiled. “Yeah, there’s that. I don’t know what I’d do if I lost that kid. My life is rackety enough as it is. Without her, I’d really be drifting.”

  “No chance of getting back together with your ex?”

  “Oh, no,” he said immediately. “She doesn’t want to be a cop’s wife, and I can’t blame her for that. It’s what came between us: the job, the damned job. Lousy hours. And her worry. It’s not that dangerous, but she thought it was. Every time a cop got killed, she’d cry for days. I’d tell her the percentages weren’t all that bad, but she couldn’t get it out of her head that some day an Inspector would show up on her doorstep and give her the bad news. A lot of cops’ wives drink—did you know that?”

  “No, but I can understand it.”

  “Still,” he said, “it’s my life. If I wasn’t a cop, what would I be? A night watchman? Bodyguard for a rock star? Not president of General Motors, that’s for sure.”

  We were back in our chairs under the umbrella. The sun glare bouncing off the sand was all I needed. I could feel my skin beginning to tingle. Pretty soon, I vowed, I’d wrap myself in denim.

  Al’s hand moved sideways. He held my fingers loosely. “What about you, Dunk?” he said. “Ready to settle down?”

  “I don’t know,” I said, embarrassed and confused. “I really don’t know what I want. For the time being I’m just floating. I figure if I’m that unsure, I better wait awhile until I’m more certain of what I want to do.”

  “Yeah,” he said, “that’s wise. But don’t wait too long. Time goes so fast! I remember when I was a kid in grade school, I thought vacation would never come. Time went so slowly. Now it whizzes by. Weeks, months, years. And then you wake up one day and say, What the hell happened? Where did it go?”

  We sat awhile in silence, holding hands, watching Sally frolic on the beach with her two beardless lovers. They were tossing a Frisbee back and forth. Lucky kids. Little did they know that they were going to grow up and have troubles.

  “By the way,” Al said, “we finally got into Orson Vanwinkle’s bank account. He had over a hundred thousand. Not bad for a secretary—wouldn’t you say? Particularly when you consider how well he lived.”

  “I would say. Did he leave a will?”

  “No sign of one—the idiot. He had no close relatives. Just some cousins. I guess eventually it’ll go to them, but meanwhile it’ll be a lawyer’s delight.”

  “What about Dolly LeBaron?”

  “She had about five thousand. No big deal. I guess Orson was paying her food bills and maintenance on the apartment and cash for her clothes—stuff like that. But apparently he wasn’t laying heavy money on her. Not enough so she could build up a nest egg.”

  “That’s odd,” I said. “He seemed to have enough money for a lot of other people.”

  “Yeah,” Al said, turning his head to stare at me. “Like Akbar El Raschid. Why didn’t you tell me about that, Dunk? You knew, didn’t you?”

  “I knew,” I admitted. “But there are a lot of things you don’t tell me, aren’t there?”

  “Maybe,” he said grudgingly. “Little, unimportant things.”

  “Besides,” I said, beginning to resent this, “I was the one who told you Orson swung both ways, wasn’t I? I figured you’d find out about his connection with Akbar. And you did.”

  “After a lot of work,” he said. “You could have saved us time.”

  I dropped his hand. “That’s not my job,” I said angrily, “to save you time.”

  He groaned. “Jesus,” he said, “what the hell are we doing? A beautiful day on the beach and we’re squabbling about a couple of homicides. Now do you understand why my wife dumped me? I can’t forget the job. I’m sorry, Dunk. Let’s not even mention it for the rest of the day. Okay?”

  “Fine with me.”

  “Truce?” he said, taking up my hand again. “You’re not sore at me?”

  “How could I be sore at a guy who makes such scrumptious fried chicken?”

  “The hell I did,” he said. “I bought it at Sam’s Chicken Chuckles around the corner from where I live.”

  I howled. “You’re a bastard,” I told him. “You know that?”

  “Oh, sure,” he said. “But I could have made it if I had wanted to. I just didn’t have the time.”

  “Uh-huh,” I said, “that’s your story. I’ll neve
r believe you again.”

  “I only lie about unimportant things,” he said. “Here comes Miss America of ten years from now.”

  Sally came dashing up to us. How come kids of her age never saunter? They always run at top speed. All that energy … I wish I had some.

  “Any lemonade left?” she demanded.

  “Shake the thermos,” her father said. “It’s your jug.”

  She drained it and got about a half-cup that she gulped down.

  “So tell us, Cleopatra,” Al said, “did you give them your phone number?”

  “They live in Jersey,” she said. “Can you imagine? Who needs that?”

  “Better luck next time,” he said.

  We got about another half-hour of sun, then decided we better start back to beat the traffic. We packed up and moved to the parking lot. The car was an oven, and we had to leave the doors open awhile before we could get in. I sat in the back with Sally.

  “What am I?” Al demanded. “A chauffeur?”

  “Do a good job,” I told him, “and we might give you a tip.”

  “A small one,” Sally said.

  We hadn’t been on the road more than ten minutes when she slowly slumped sideways against me. I put my arm about her shoulders, and she snuggled in. She was asleep almost instantly, breathing deeply with just the tiniest snore. She smelled of suntan oil, salt, and youth. Lovely.

  Al noticed all this in the rearview mirror and grinned. “Conked out?” he asked softly.

  “She’s entitled,” I said.

  “You want to? Go ahead.”

  “Not me,” I said. “I just don’t feel like it.” Which was a fib. I swore the moment I got home I’d take a hot shower and flop into bed.

  We drove back to Manhattan in almost total silence, except when Al cursed at someone who cut him off. He pulled up outside my brownstone and I gently disengaged my arm from around Sally. I had to massage it.

  “I didn’t go to sleep,” I said, “but my arm did.”

  I moved away from Sally and she slid down until she was lying on the seat.

  “Let her snooze,” Al said, turning around. “I’ll wake her up when I get her home.”

  I leaned across the front seat, took his face in my palms, kissed him on the lips. “Thanks for a wonderful day,” I said. “It was super.”

  “It had its moments, didn’t it? Do it again?”

  “Just whistle,” I said, “and I’ll come a’running.”

  “Dunk…” he said.

  “What?”

  He had a strange expression, all twisted. I couldn’t tell what he was thinking.

  “Nothing,” he said. “It’ll go for another time.”

  “Whenever you say.”

  “Sally likes you; I can tell. You’re two of a kind: a couple of nuts.”

  “You need women like us in your life.”

  “Tell me about it,” he said. “You think I don’t know? I’ll wait here until you’re inside.”

  I paused at my door to turn and give him a wave. He blew a kiss to me.

  Old-fashioned. But nice.

  27

  I SLEPT FOR ABOUT four hours that Sunday evening, completely whacked out from the fresh air and the sun. Then I woke, staggered into the kitchen, drank about a quart of water, and peeled and ate a chilled tangerine. Then I went back to bed—what else? I think the expression is “plum tuckered.”

  When I looked at myself in the mirror on Monday morning, I could see the sun lines of my maillot, but the burn was just a gentle blush. It didn’t hurt, and I didn’t think it was going to peel—which was a blessing. Just to make sure, I rubbed on some moisturizer. I hated to shed skin, like some old snake.

  All in all, I was feeling pretty frisky. I made notes in my journal about what Al had told me of the money left by Orson Vanwinkle and Dolly LeBaron. Then I went out to pick up the morning paper and a brioche. Back home, I sliced open the brioche and slathered it with cream cheese and blackberry jam. That’s living!

  It became a busy day, which suited my mood exactly. I wanted to be doing. When the phone rang, I grabbed it up, thinking it might be Al Georgio, thanking me for the most exciting, memorable afternoon of his life. But it turned out to be Archibald Havistock—which was okay, too.

  “Miss Bateson,” he said, “I must apologize. With the confusion following my secretary’s death and my daughter’s, ah, recent incident, I fell behind in my personal accounts. I now see that I owe you for two weeks’ employment. I am sorry for the oversight. I have written out the check. Shall I mail it to you or would you prefer to pick it up?”

  “I’d like to pick it up, sir,” I said promptly. “Mostly because I’d like the opportunity of talking to you for a few minutes. Would that be possible?”

  “Of course,” he said in that deep, resonant voice. “I expect to be in all day. Come over whenever you wish.”

  “And Ruby Querita,” I said. “May I talk to her, too?”

  A brief pause, then: “Yes, she’ll be here.”

  “Thank you, Mr. Havistock,” I said. “See you shortly.”

  I dressed with deliberate care: a high-necked, long-sleeved white blouse with a calf-length black skirt, not too snug. If I had put my hair up in a bun and stuck a pencil through it, I figured I could have passed as J. P. Morgan’s secretary. That was the impression I wanted to give Mr. Havistock: a sober, industrious, dutiful employee. Little would he know that I had wolfed three frozen Milky Ways in one afternoon.

  I took a final glance in the mirror and wondered if Sally could be right: a short, feathered hairdo might change my entire life. Nah.

  I was at the door, ready to leave, when the phone rang again. That had to be Al. I dashed back.

  “Mary Bateson?” a woman’s voice asked.

  “Yes.”

  “I have a collect call for you from Enoch in Arizona. Will you accept the charges?”

  “Yes,” I said. “Oh, yes.”

  “You are Mary Bateson?”

  “I am.”

  “Thank you. Go ahead, sir.”

  “I did it!” he said triumphantly. “I called collect like you told me to.”

  “Bless you, Enoch,” I said, laughing. “How are you?”

  “If I felt any better,” he said, “I’d be unconscious. And you, Dunk?”

  “Feeling fine,” I said.

  Then I told him about my day at the beach, and he told me that he had been asked to write a monograph on Greek coinage of the Gaulish tribes for a numismatic journal. He sounded chipper—which was a delight.

  “Enough of this chitchat,” he said. “I spoke to my friends in New York who might have handled sales by Archibald Havistock over the past five years. As far as I could learn, he sold mostly through three dealers, which is unusual in itself.”

  “How so?”

  “Why three dealers? Most serious collectors work through one man. You find someone you can trust, someone you like, and you stick with him.”

  “Not all dealers are like you, Enoch. Maybe he was just shopping around for the best price.”

  “Maybe. Anyway, from what I could learn, over a period of five years Havistock unloaded—are you ready for this?”

  “How much?” I said eagerly. “Tell me!”

  “Almost half a million.”

  “Wow! He must have had some good stuff.”

  “He did. The man apparently is, or was, a very dedicated and knowledgeable collector. Not a dog in the bunch. And, of course, the dealers did very well on what they bought from him or handled on consignment. So everyone gained. Still, it’s hard to understand.”

  “What is, Enoch?”

  “You spend a lifetime building up a fine collection and then you sell it off. So maybe he needed the money. But it’s sad to break up a collection like that. He’s not starving, is he?”

  “Far from it.”

  “Well, there you are. Dunk darling, do you think this will help you find the Demaretion?”

  “I don’t honestly know,” I said s
lowly. “It’s another piece of information to put in my notebook, but what it means, I have no idea.”

  “All right,” he said briskly, “that’s taken care of. What’s next?”

  I cast about wildly for something he could do, knowing how important it was to him to be needed. Then I had an inspiration.

  “There’s one thing you might do, Enoch,” I said. “Remember when a new client came into the shop, you always ran a credit check on him.”

  “Of course,” he said. “It’s best to know the reputation of the person you’re dealing with. Is he trustworthy? Does he pay his bills? Do his checks bounce? Better to know beforehand.”

  “Could you run a credit check on Archibald Havistock?”

  “Havistock?” he said, shocked. “He is a wealthy, reputable man.”

  “I know,” I said, “but still, I’d like to learn more about his financial condition.”

  This was strictly make-work for Enoch. Al Georgio and Jack Smack had already investigated and told me about Havistock’s situation: his income, the fact that most of his assets were in his wife’s name. But it wouldn’t do any harm to get another opinion.

  “I’ll try,” Enoch said doubtfully. “You’re wondering why he was selling off all those lovely mintages for the past five years?”

  “That’s it,” I said gratefully. “Just a woman’s idle curiosity.”

  “To tell you the truth,” he said, “I’m curious myself. I’ll see what I can do, Dunk dear.”

  After we hung up, with vows of love, I started out again. This time I made it.

  It was a hazy, dazy day with an odor of sulfur in the air, and I immediately decided against walking over to the East Side. I caught a cab that was mercifully air-conditioned and smelled only of dead cigars.

  When I first moved to New York, going from the West Side to the East was like going from Calcutta to Paris, but things had changed and were changing. The city (Manhattan) was becoming one big potpourri of boutiques, antique shops, unisex hair styling salons, and Korean greengrocers. In another five years, I figured, Broadway would have a branch of Tiffany’s and Park Avenue would have massage parlors.

  Ruby Querita let me into the Havistock apartment. As usual, she was dressed like one of the witches from Macbeth, but she gave me a defrosted smile and I touched her arm.