“One of these days I’m gonna make it to Bell’s Beach, and no one is going to stand in my way. And somehow, some way, I am going to find Barney. How about you, Annie? Are you and Dennis ready to tie the knot?” The silence on the other end of the line prompted Pete to repeat his question.
“Dennis told me yesterday, over a lunch of crab and champagne, that he would like a year away from me to be sure I’m the right woman. Something like that. He dumped me. It’s okay, Pete, don’t feel sorry for me. It’s better that it happened now. I’d hate to have to go through a divorce. When I get married, it’s forever. You know that.”
“That sucks, Annie,” Pete said angrily. “Dennis is never going to find anyone better than you. It’s his fucking loss, you remember that.”
“I have a question. Why don’t you and Maddie go to Bell’s Beach for your honeymoon? You said you always wanted to go to Australia. It was your dream, Pete. If you don’t do it now, you might never do it.”
“All we can manage is a long weekend. Fairy Tales, the new store, needs its boss, and I have some business I can’t neglect. I’ll get there, don’t worry. Is business good? I wish you’d leave that schlock outfit and come work for me. We’d make a good team, Annie.”
“Yeah, yeah, yeah. Seriously, I appreciate the offer because I know it’s sincere, but I’m not ready for the fast track. I have my niche here and I’m comfortable. I have a chance to make partner early next year if I can come up with eighty grand to buy in. I’m thinking about it.”
“Annie, it’s yours, all you have to do is ask.”
“I know that, Pete, it’s the asking that’s hard. Listen, I have to hang up and wind down things if I want to make that shuttle. Are you sure the super will let me in?”
“Hell yes. I’m going to call as soon as I hang up. Call me as soon as you know something.”
After he hung up, Pete looked at the phone, at the empty bourbon bottle. He was just drunk enough to do something stupid like calling Dennis Morris. He acted on his drunkenness. The minute he heard Dennis’s voice, Pete blurted, “You stupid son of a bitch, why’d you dump Annie? She’s the best thing that ever happened to you!”
“What’s it to you, Pete? Listen, I don’t owe you any explanation. Just because we were roommates at law school doesn’t give you the right to interfere in my personal life, even if Annie is your ex-girlfriend.”
“Annie was never my girlfriend and you know it. We’re good friends. For God’s sake, she’s like a sister to me.”
“Sister my ass! She’s been in love with you since the day we did our first moot court.”
“You’re crazy,” Pete said uneasily.
“And you’re John the Baptist. You know it, you just don’t want to look it in the eye. I’m tired of living in your shadow. It’s always, Pete said this, Pete said that, Pete’s going to do this or that.”
The uneasiness was growing. “You’re off track here, Dennis. We’re good friends, we got each other over lots of bad spots. She was always there for me, and I hope I was there for her. There’s nothing else.”
“Maybe for you there isn’t, but try telling that to Annie. Do you know what she did when you told her you were getting married?” When Pete didn’t answer immediately, Dennis demanded, “Well, do you?”
“No. We had a few drinks, but that’s it.”
“Yeah, well she had a few more drinks, okay, and about twenty-five other ones. The bartender called me from Kelly’s and told me to come and get her. She was sloppy drunk, crying and moaning. She puked in the cab, on the steps to her apartment, and all over her living room. It was never the same after that. You ask me, it’s your fault for being stupid all along about Annie Gabriel.”
“Fuck you, Dennis,” Pete shouted. He slammed the phone down so hard it slithered off the night table.
He thought about Annie then, because he had to pay attention to what Dennis said. Just because, in his opinion, Dennis was an asshole, didn’t mean he didn’t know what he was talking about. Was Annie in love with him? He had to admit he didn’t know. She called him and he called her. Good friends did that. They stayed in touch, remembered birthdays, sent Christmas plants to one another. Good friends shared experiences and from time to time shared their miseries too. They consoled, congratulated, and ... smiled through their tears. They loved each other, but they weren’t in love.
Dennis didn’t know what the hell he was talking about, Pete decided abruptly. Annie was a true, loyal friend, and Dennis couldn’t handle another man in Annie’s life. Well, fuck you, Dennis, Pete railed to himself. It’s your problem. He dozed then, hoping he’d dream about Maddie, but it was Annie’s smile that beckoned him to Morpheus.
Annie Gabriel stepped out of the car in front of Maddie’s building. It was a doorman building, but there wasn’t a doorman in sight. She walked around the lobby for a minute or so before she rang for the elevator. It seemed to be stuck on the fifteenth floor. She headed for the stairs, her legs protesting the long climb. It was an old building with peeling paint and worn carpeting, but she knew the rent was outrageous. She checked the number against the notes she’d taken. Satisfied, she walked down the hall to Maddie’s door. A white sheet of paper was taped to it. The message read: DUE TO FAMILY EMERGENCY, I’M OUT OF TOWN. There was no signature. She didn’t know if it was Maddie’s writing or not. Annie shifted her weight from one foot to the other as she wondered if it was possible to pick the lock. A moment later she had one of her credit cards in her hands. She jiggled it carefully. It probably only works in the movies, she thought, and then the door opened. She stepped inside and immediately backstepped.
Something was wrong here. With the weak hallway light filtering into the apartment, she could see wild disarray. Instinct told her not to venture into the room. She closed the door. Back in the lobby the doorman looked at her suspiciously. “I’m looking for Miss Stern,” Annie said. “You weren’t here so I went upstairs. Would you happen to know where she’s gone?”
The doorman shook his head. “I haven’t seen Miss Stern for three or four days.”
Annie thanked him and left the building. She walked over to First Avenue and hailed a cab. She gave the driver the address for Fairy Tales.
What she hoped to learn in the dark was a mystery, but she knew Pete would ask if she went to the shop. She knew there would be an alarm system, so she wouldn’t be doing any lock picking.
Twenty minutes later she pretended to be a window shopper, peering between the iron bars stretched across the display window. A dim light burned in back of the store, but there wasn’t enough light to see anything in detail. There seemed to be no disarray here. Everything seemed normal. Passersby didn’t stop or look at her strangely. After all, this was New York City, where no one ever, supposedly, helped one another or made eye contact. She walked back to the waiting cab with the ticking meter and gave Pete’s home address.
The super opened Pete’s door for her. She switched on the lights and looked around. “Nice pad,” she murmured. She wondered why Pete had never invited her here. Everything was leather and comfortable. The decorator, whoever he or she was, had used neutral tones to play up the largeness of the room. It was a two-bedroom with an eat-in kitchen and a formal dining room. An honest-to-God fireplace took up one wall of the living room. A giant-size television was set up on the opposite wall. When did Pete have time to watch television or build a fire?
The apartment, at first glance, looked unused and unlived in. She frowned when she walked into the kitchen and saw coffee cups and leftover coffee in the pot. In the bedroom, the king-size bed was unmade, a liquor bottle on the nightstand, plus two cups that looked like they held cocoa. She leaned over to smell the pillows. Two different scents. Not aftershave; Silence. She had a sample bottle. She couldn’t identify the second scent other than the fact that it was light and flowery, definitely not aftershave or hair shampoo. Maddie and her friend Janny, whom Pete had mentioned. Maybe. It made sense.
Annie placed a call to Pete.
He picked up the phone on the second ring. “It’s Annie, Pete,” she said, trying to make her tone light.
“What’s going on, Annie?”
She told him.
“Maddie doesn’t have any family,” Pete said, “except a stepmother and stepbrother she doesn’t get along with. Scratch that. Janny doesn’t have any family either, that’s why they get along so good. They were foster-home children.”
“Pete, when you left here, what did your apartment look like?”
“Probably pretty messy, but Leona comes in twice a week to clean up. Did she screw up?”
“Somebody’s been here. Your bed is unmade, and both pillows look like someone slept on them. There are a few cups and a liquor bottle which look like they don’t belong in the bedroom.”
“No, no, nothing like that. I left from Maddie’s. I seem to recall a mess of my clothes in the corner, a pile of cleaning Leona usually drops off on her way home. Is the check on the dining room table?”
“There was nothing on the table, not even dust.”
“Then Leona was there after I left.”
“Is Leona the type to party with the boss away?” Annie asked cautiously.
Pete snorted. “Leona is sixty-five and has arthritis in both knees. She’s miserably married to a no-good so-and-so, and doesn’t have time to party. Besides, she doesn’t have the key, the super lets her in and then locks up when she leaves. I pay handsomely at Christmas time for that little service. Something is wrong, Annie.”
“I admit something doesn’t seem quite right. It’s entirely possible, Pete, that some sort of emergency came up and that Maddie, and maybe Janny, went off to do whatever . . . was needed.” It sounded lame even to her. “What are the chances of you coming home early?”
“Not good. If I leave, this deal falls apart. I’m the cohesive. For some reason, these people like me. I guess they trust me, because they keep requesting me to handle the legal matters. There’s no way I can leave right now. As it is, I have to make up four days, so that pretty much means I’m going to be working ’round the clock. Look, go by Fairy Tales in the morning and see what’s going on there. Call me as soon as you check it out. Annie, I can’t thank you enough. I’ll talk to you tomorrow.”
For some reason, perhaps to keep him from worrying more than he already was, she’d decided not to tell him she’d already been to the store. She’d go again in the morning. “I know you’d do it for me. ’Night, Pete.”
Annie replaced the phone on the little night table next to a picture of Pete and Maddie. She picked it up. How pretty she was. How happy they both looked. Her eyes misted. “Make him happy,” she whispered. “Please don’t hurt him.”
Because it was too early to go to sleep, Annie made the bed, carried the cups and liquor bottle to the kitchen. She washed all the cups before she made a pot of coffee for herself. She realized she was hungry when she looked into the empty refrigerator. The freezer was full, everything frozen rock-solid. She managed to pry loose a bagel and a stick of butter that she placed in the microwave oven to defrost.
Annie kicked off her shoes, unbuttoning her suit jacket as she made her way to the bedroom. Hanging on a hook behind the door was a striped velour robe. It must belong to Pete, she thought, sniffing, recognizing his scent. She slipped her arms into the robe and belted it. For a brief moment she allowed herself to nuzzle the sleeve before she padded back to the kitchen. She poured coffee, picked up her briefcase and went into the living room. She read the paper she’d picked up at the airport and curled up on the sofa. There was no way in this world she was going to torment herself by sleeping in Pete’s bed. Once again she found herself wondering why Pete had never invited her here to this apartment. Oh, he’d invited her to New York often enough, booked her at the Carlisle and paid the bill, but never brought her here.
Dennis was right, she was in love with Pete Sorenson. Unrequited love. “You better love him as much as I do, Maddie Stern, that’s all I can say,” she muttered tearfully as she flipped the pages of the Times. She skimmed over an article about the U.S. suing General Motors for selling one of its cars despite knowledge of brake fluid leakage. Let some other lawyer handle that. She wondered if Pete knew Jack Nicklaus won the PGA golf title, and made a mental note to mention it. She skimmed through the Times’s skimpy crime news, reading that two men were gunned down in cold blood on Sunday afternoon in broad daylight. “That’s New York for you,” she said. The woman who was an eyewitness to the crime was going to testify. “You do that and you’re dead meat.” In disgust she tossed the paper on the coffee table and turned on the television set. She watched what Pete called a shoot-’em-up-bang movie, not knowing or caring what she was watching.
Eventually she dozed, her face cuddled into the bulky sleeve of Pete’s robe. Her last conscious thought before drifting off was, true love meant you wanted the other person to be happy, even at the cost of your own happiness.
At ten o’clock sharp the following morning, Annie stepped from a cab directly in front of Fairy Tales. She took a moment to admire the pristine whiteness of the double Dutch doors. Maddie had an eye for decorating. From what she’d been able to see last evening, Fairy Tales was a one-of-a-kind enterprise, just the kind of business Pete would be comfortable backing. It wouldn’t hurt his bank account at all to be the husband of the owner. Always keep it in the family, was Pete’s motto.
Annie walked into the store, her heart leapfrogging in her chest. She wasn’t sure why. She looked around, mesmerized by the detail, the unusual merchandise and the childlike atmosphere of the shop. She looked up to see two women heading in her direction. “Hi, I’m looking for Maddie. Is she here?”
“Miss Stern was called away on a family emergency a few days ago,” one of the women said. “Can we help you?”
Annie shrugged. “And you are?”
“Maddie’s cousins,” the second woman said, her gaze sharp and penetrating. “And you?”
“Ruth Ann Gabriel. I’m from Boston. Maddie’s fiance has been trying to reach her, but her phone has been disconnected. I went by her apartment and there was a note on the door. I need to talk with her as soon as possible. If you’re her cousins, you must have the number where she can be reached.
“It must be serious,” Annie said, looking around, “the family emergency I mean. This shop just opened on Monday.” She smiled at the women, who regarded her stonily. They’re cops, Annie thought.
“You came all the way from Boston to talk to Maddie?” one of the women said incredulously.
“Boston isn’t that far on the shuttle. Pete is very worried. You being Maddie’s cousins and all, you must be aware that it was Pete’s money that backed this enterprise. I’m an attorney. I think I might need to see something in writing authorizing you to be in this shop. Better yet, why don’t we call Mr. Sorenson in Hong Kong now and straighten this out.”
“We aren’t authorized . . . Maddie didn’t say anything about making calls out of the country,” the second woman said. “And the phone has been out of order since yesterday.”
“That’s no problem, we can call the phone company,” Annie said. “The phone company is real good about immediate repairs for business. I have a phone card. We can charge the call to my office or we can make the call collect. Why don’t we do that right now,” Annie said quietly. “Maybe we should call the police.” Let’s see what you have to say to that. “If you’re Maddie’s cousins, why aren’t you at the family emergency?”
Three women entered the shop and immediately started to ooh and ah over, the displays. They motioned to the two women for help. The “cousins” exchanged glances, but moved off to help the customers, leaving Annie alone.
They were cops, she was sure of it. She’d seen the little byplay when she’d entered the store, with one of the women’s hands going to her hip in a reflex motion. Obviously, she was used to wearing a holster. A beat cop. Now what? she wondered. “There’s something dark and brown here, Pete, and I think I just stepped in
it,” Annie murmured under her breath.
Annie continued browsing the shop, her eyes blurring when she picked up dainty baby outfits that were so exquisite it boggled her mind, as did the miniature price tags. The labels, Annie thought, were just as exquisite as the garment itself, handmade, created by the person who’d made the outfit. Distinctive.
She knew in her gut the phone wasn’t out of order. Maybe she should leave the store, call Pete from a phone booth and have him call the store. The two women looked like they were capable of booting her right out. God, what was going on here?
Annie stepped aside as the five women converged on the wrapping table. She watched as merchandise was wrapped in confetti-colored tissue and then placed in shimmery boxes that matched the tissue. The boxes were then placed in oversize shopping bags with silvery strands of cellophane to add the final touches. A class operation. She winced when the totals appeared on the cash register. Twenty-one hundred dollars between the three women, who were still oohing and aahing.
The moment the door tinkled shut, Annie said, “Well, ladies?”
“We can’t give out information and we can’t help you,” one of them said coolly. “We aren’t making any overseas calls until Maddie authorizes it. If you want to call the police, you’ll have to do it somewhere else. Now, if you don’t mind, we have customers to take care of.”
There was nothing for Annie to do but leave. Outside, she hailed a cab and gave Pete’s address. Thirty minutes later she was on the phone explaining to Pete exactly what had happened. “I called the phone company, and they said the phone is working. Give me thirty-five minutes or so to get back to the store, and then you call while I’m there. Don’t hang up till you speak with me.”
Minutes later Annie was back in the cab, her mind whirling. Pete was so upset he was threatening to leave Hong Kong on the next flight. She’d convinced him to wait, to let her have one more try at the store. He’d agreed.
Desperate Measures Page 17
