by Blake Banner
“Her ex-boyfriend, the loser from the Bronx.”
She nodded. “She was always fascinated by him.” She gave me a look that was hard to interpret. “This strange attraction bastards have for some women. I told her not to be stupid. She had struck it lucky. Not only did she really seem to love this Hugh character, but he was loaded and seemed to be a genuinely nice man. But she insisted she knew what she was doing, and she came to New York.”
She ran her fingers through her hair and flopped into the chair opposite me.
“It was like that bloody storm all over again. One minute, everything was light and sunshine, and the next, all hell had broken loose. She was on the phone to me, hysterical, sobbing her poor little eyes out. She had done something terrible; there were men hunting for her who wanted to kill her…”
“What had she done that was so terrible?”
She studied my face a long time. I studied hers back. It was expressionless, hard, calculating.
“She had stolen something.”
“From Duffy.”
She didn’t answer. “She had taken something that she should not have taken, and now there were men after her, who were prepared to kill her in order to get it back.”
“What had she stolen?”
“I can’t tell you.”
“If you want my help, sister…”
“I can’t tell you!” She snapped it and stared at me, hard. “I cannot tell you! Don’t ask! You don’t need to know. The point is, she took it, and these men are after her, and they will kill her, not just to get it back, but to make an example of her.”
I narrowed my eyes. “Are you talking about Duffy, or are you talking about dos Santos?”
She put her glass down and buried her face in her hands. “Dos Santos is a very, very dangerous man, John. He is pure evil.” She looked up at me. “You think you are hard and ruthless, but this man has no soul. He will stop at nothing. There is no point beyond which he will not go.”
“So what did you do?”
“What could I do? I came to New York. Fortunately, I had good friends here. I was involved in the antiques trade in London, so it wasn’t hard for me to find work here. I took Tammy in, made her safe. I met Ulrich, my husband, and we have had an almost normal life until now.”
“Tammy lives with you?”
“No. And please don’t ask me where she is. I can’t and I won’t tell you.”
“How do you expect me to help you if you don’t tell me what she stole or where she is?”
She closed her eyes. “I shouldn’t have come here.”
“Wrong. Don’t go to pieces on me, Emma. For once you made the right choice—stay with it.”
She stood. “I need to go home. If Ulrich wakes up…”
I stood and moved toward her. I grabbed her by the arms and dragged her close, pressing her hard against me. “Stay! You can’t leave it like this! You know I will come after you!”
“John, please…!” Her face was barely an inch from mine. Her lips were tender and pink, and her eyes, deep blue, were searching mine for something. I don’t know if she found it, but she placed a hand gently on my chest and whispered. “This has been hard for me. I have never told anybody what I have told you tonight. Give me time. I will come back, I promise, and then…”
I growled, “And then what?”
“Then, I promise, I will share everything with you. Call me a taxi, John, please…”
Five minutes later, I walked her to the cab. Just before she got in, she planted a real, tender kiss on my cheek. And then she was gone. All there was was a pair of red taillights fading into the night.
Nineteen
I went inside and phoned Dehan.
“Do you know what time it is, Stone?”
“One twenty. Were you sleeping?”
“No, I was hanging on the phone, waiting for you to call.”
She didn’t sound sleepy. “You want a drink?”
“Now?”
“I need to tell you what happened.”
“And it can’t wait till the morning?”
I thought about it. “I’m confused.”
She was quiet for a moment. “Sensei is confused. Must be pretty complex.”
“It’s pretty complex, and I am having trouble telling the lies from the truth.”
“Okay.”
“Shall I come over?”
I heard her sigh, then the sound of a computer being switched off. “No, I’ll come to you.”
I dropped a couple of rocks of ice in my whiskey and went and sat on my stoop. Somewhere I could hear the repetitive sawing, croaking of frogs. The air was close and humid, and I took one of the rocks from my drink and rubbed it around the back of my neck, running through in my mind everything that Emma had told me, examining each point, trying to decide which bits were true and which bits were lies.
Dehan arrived twenty minutes later. She pulled up behind my Jag, climbed out, and stood looking at me from the sidewalk.
“How many of those have you had?”
“This is my third.”
“I’ve got some catching up to do, then.”
I smiled. It was a relief to see her. Even when she was mad, she was never judgmental. She kept it real.
“You going to come in, or do I have to go and get you?”
She pushed through the gate and came up the path on her long legs and walked past me into the house. I followed. She stood in the middle of the living room, taking in the scene with a cop’s eyes: the martini glass half-finished on the floor by the sofa. She turned to face me. “You’ve got lipstick on your cheek.”
“And only on my cheek. Stop jumping to conclusions. You want ice?”
“Yeah. Can we sit in the garden?”
We took our drinks outside and sat at the garden table. The frogs were louder out there. She put her foot on my chair and asked me, “So what happened?”
“She called at eleven…” I paused and looked at her. “You have to understand something, I am presenting myself to this woman as a bent cop. So my behavior is not exactly exemplary, okay?”
She gave a small smile, but most of her humor was in her eyes. “Okay…”
I told her the whole story, in detail, without leaving anything out. It was almost like a confession, and I was aware while I was doing it that I was looking for some kind of absolution from her.
She listened in silence, holding her glass in both hands and watching me. When I’d finished, she gave a small sigh and sipped her drink. Then she gave a small laugh. “You called her babe?”
I snorted. “I guess I was inspired by your talk of Frisco and yeggs.” I became serious. “The point is, I am having trouble telling the truth from fantasy here.”
She was quiet for a long while, turning her glass in her fingers. After a bit, she asked me the question that was eating her. “Stone, is she getting to you?”
“What do you mean?”
She fixed me with her big black eyes. “We can be straight with each other, right? I have to tell you, you have been acting strange since you met her. Are you falling for her?”
“Of course not.”
“There is no ‘of course’ about it, Stone. You said yourself this woman is beautiful. She is intense and passionate. Hell, she sounds fascinating. Any man would be attracted to her.”
“I am not falling for her, Dehan.”
She shrugged. “Okay, whatever you say. So what is it that’s confusing you?”
I frowned. “The whole thing sounds fantastic. The two sisters separated. One is brought to the States. The other is brought up in England. The younger one falls in with a guy who is ‘pure evil’ and ‘has no soul.’ It’s like a Mexican soap opera. Now she has her hidden and can’t tell me where she is. All the cloak-and-dagger mystery.” I sat forward and put my elbows on my knees. “I’ll tell you, before she arrived and told me her crazy story, I was convinced I had it sewn up. Now I don’t know what to believe.”
She drained her glass, stood,
and went inside. She came out with the bottle and refilled my glass and her own.
“I’ll replace this tomorrow,” she said, and sat. “You want my advice?” I nodded. “Bring her in.”
“What?”
“Come on, Stone. It’s as clear as daylight. If it was anybody else, you wouldn’t think twice about it.”
“I can get more out of her if I play her along.”
“Bullshit. We have an eyewitness who saw Tamara Gunthersen commit a double homicide, and she may well have been party to a third. Emma Girt is harboring a suspected murderer. Bring her in and throw the book at her. Threaten her with jail time if she doesn’t give up the whereabouts of her sister. Make her understand that if she does not cooperate, her husband, her business, and her million-dollar lifestyle on Madison Avenue are going to go up in smoke.”
She watched me and read my face like a book. I puffed out my cheeks and blew hard. She pointed at me. “Now you need to be asking yourself, what makes her different? Because you and I both know, if it was anybody else, you would be all over them like a rash. So what makes this dame different?”
I thought about it.
“Nothing.”
“So?”
“I am not protecting her.”
“So what are you doing?”
I spread my hands. “I’m trying to understand, Dehan. This woman is hiding a lot of secrets. If we go charging in like a bull in a china shop, we risk her clamming up and blowing our one shot at this case. I am not convinced that her million-dollar lifestyle on Madison Avenue is all that important to her.”
“You think her aspirations are more spiritual?”
“Don’t be sarcastic.”
“Sorry. Let me ask you something, Stone.”
“What?”
“Why did you ask me to come here tonight?”
I shrugged. “I value your…”
“No. Not all that. Why did you ask me here. Why did you ask somebody, anybody, to come here tonight.”
I frowned. “Because I was confused. I needed to…”
She cut across me. “When was the last time you were this kind of confused about a case?”
She had me pinned like a bug on a board. I stared at her a long time. “Never.”
She raised her eyebrows and said, “So here is the John Stone classic question. What is it about this case that makes it so much more confusing than any other? And you and I both know the answer.”
“Her.”
“You said it yourself, Stone, you had the whole thing clear in your head until she showed up and started putting lipstick on your cheek. And only on your cheek. Let me ask you another question, partner.”
I sighed. “What?”
“When was the last time you got laid?”
“That is none of your goddamn business.”
“Are you sure?”
“My sexual frustration, assuming I have any, is not affecting my professional judgment, Dehan!”
“But your lust for this woman—and I am assuming that is all it is, Stone—may be. I sure as hell hope you are not falling in love with her.”
I drained my glass and put it on the table.
“Let’s get something clear for once and for all, Dehan. I am not in love with Emma. I am not lusting after Emma.” I nodded several times. “Yes, she has thrown me a curveball. Whether she has done it deliberately or whether there is some other reason, I don’t know. But my judgment is not impaired by lust or love. Are we clear?”
She shook her head. “No. I’ll take your word for it, and I trust you, but I am not clear on either of those two points. And make no mistake, I am going to be watching you like a hawk. Now, I am giving you my advice. Haul her in and put her on the rack.”
I thought about it a long time. In the end I shook my head.
“Watch me. Like you said, watch me like a hawk. If you see me making a seriously bad move, jump on me. But right now, I know we can get a lot more from her if I play along. She said she’d come back and share everything with me. If she does, we may get not just Tammy but Geronimo too. Let’s wait.”
She sighed. She wasn’t happy, but she agreed. She nodded and said, “Okay, Stone, but stop scaring me, will you?”
I laughed. “I can’t promise the impossible, Dehan. One for the road?”
“Come on, then. One for the road.”
We toasted and drank. She smacked her lips and sighed, with that inscrutable smile she had sometimes.
“Guess I’m the lucky one, then.”
“How’s that?”
“She drives you crazy, but I get to stay the night.”
I chuckled. “And you cook me breakfast.”
“What woman does that for you, Stone?”
“Nobody. Only you, Dehan.”
“That’s what I’m sayin’.”
Twenty
We didn’t have to wait long. Next morning, as we were releasing Peter Gunthersen, at about half ten, my phone rang. It was Emma.
“John, we need to talk.”
“Wait.” I signaled Dehan with my eyebrows and took myself outside. “What is it?”
“I haven’t slept all night.”
“I didn’t sleep a lot myself.”
“You have upset everything. I don’t know if I am coming or going.”
“I’m at work. I can’t talk a lot. What’s on your mind?”
“I have to see you.”
“Tonight.”
“No. Now.”
“What for? I told you I’m at work.”
“It’s urgent, John. I told you our lives are at risk.”
I made a show of thinking about it.
“Where?”
“At your house.”
“This better be worth it, Emma. I don’t aim to play any games with you.”
“I’ll make it worth your while, I promise…”
“You know you will. Give me an hour.”
“I’ll be there.”
Dehan was watching me from the doorway. I walked back to her.
“She wants to see me in an hour, at my place. Go find Baxter. If he’s not there, wait for him. Bring him in. Hold him. Don’t let him see a lawyer—delay him, bullshit him, do whatever you have to do. Threaten him with a charge of conspiracy to murder. I want an address for dos Santos.”
She nodded. “Okay.”
She went inside and I headed home, wondering what Emma was going to hit me with this time. I tried to focus on what the case had originally been about. Who murdered Steve Springfellow, and maybe Tamara Gunthersen. But with every clue we unearthed, we seemed to get not just further from an answer, but further from the original question.
I pulled in in front of Dehan’s car and sat staring at it, remembering her words that night. “What is it about this case in particular that makes it so confusing?”
I got out and went inside.
Twenty minutes later, Emma arrived in a cab. I watched her pay the driver, then run across the road. She was carrying a small parcel. I opened the door and let her in.
She didn’t say anything. She just put her hand on my chest and stared up into my face. Then she walked inside and put the parcel on the dining table.
“Give me a drink, will you?”
“It’s eleven in the morning.”
A spasm of anger flashed across her face. “Oh, fuck that! Just give me a fucking drink, will you!” She closed her eyes and took a deep, shuddering breath. “My nerves are shot to pieces.”
I poured her a shot of whiskey, and she downed it in one. Then she held out the glass for me to refill it. I did. She sipped it and set it down on the table, next to the parcel. I nodded at it.
“What’s this?”
“I have had enough, John. Baxter, and then you, crashing into my life, threatening me, forever having to look over my shoulder. I can’t. I can’t live like this. I want out. I want to take Tammy and get out.”
“That’s not going to be so easy.”
“You think I don’t know that?”
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“Who did Tamara steal from, Emma?”
She sighed. “Technically, from Hugh Duffy. But as far as dos Santos is concerned, she stole for him, and whatever she stole belongs to him.”
“What the hell did she steal?”
“This.”
She undid the wrapping to reveal a wooden box, about one foot square and three or four inches deep. She opened the box and extracted a small painting in a fairly plain, gold leaf frame. It was a portrait of a woman. She was in Renaissance dress and had been watching the artist as he worked. She had humorous eyes and very elegant clothes. I studied it a moment, then looked at Emma and shrugged.
She said, “That is Clarice Orsini, the wife of Lorenzo de Medici, Leonardo da Vinci’s patron. It was painted by Leonardo in 1469, just after their marriage. Its value is incalculable.”
I raised an eyebrow. “This is an original da Vinci, and you’re carrying it around in a box?”
“This is what Tammy stole from Hugh Duffy on Geronimo dos Santos’s orders.”
I put the painting back in the box. “Why have you brought it here?”
“Because I want you to hold it. I want you to conduct the negotiations. All I ask is that you make it so that dos Santos leaves us alone and we can go back to a normal life. Whatever money you make on the sale, keep for yourself. I want no part of it, and neither does Tammy. All we want is our lives back.”
“Slow down, sister.” I went and got a glass and poured myself a shot. I took a slug and rested my ass against the back of the armchair. “In the first place, it’s not just dos Santos. It’s the cops, too. Tammy is wanted in connection with two, maybe three murders. And in the second place, what makes you think I’m not just going to take the money and run?”
She pulled out a chair and sat. “John, with what you make from that painting, you will never have to work again as long as you live. You won’t just be rich, you will be fabulously rich.” She paused, studying my face. “And I am not stupid. I know it would be easy for you to fix it so that suspicion is deflected away from Tammy. Her case went cold through lack of evidence. It can go cold again, or better still, it can get closed. Steve was shot with Pete’s revolver; so was Ernesto and so was Danny Schultz. How hard would it be to pin the murders on Peter?” She watched me a moment and then gave a knowing smile. “Or if that troubles your conscience, pin it on Danny, who then got mugged and rained on with his own .38.”
