by Barbara Paul
Dead silence. Dudley stared at her with a mixture of shock and scorn, and then said passionately, “What do I plan on doing with them? Is that what you said? I plan on having them, that’s what I plan on doing with them! You think maybe I’m going to plaster the walls with them?” In a huff, he turned and shouldered his way through the crowd.
Janet was laughing. “That is the one question you never ask a collector. Not ever.”
“Yeah, I guess so,” Marian said. “Well. So, where are your brothers?”
“Oh, Luke’s in Indiana, Mark’s minding the store, and Matthew’s cruising here, looking for bargains.”
“What’s Luke doing in Indiana?”
“Attending a private auction. Movie memorabilia.” Janet looked thoughtful. “You know, the people who started collecting seriously back during Hollywood’s Golden Age are all getting on in years now. And whenever one of them dies, the heirs almost always put the collection up for auction. A lot of good items are available now that have been out of circulation since the thirties. This man in Indiana—he specialized in horror movies. Bela Lugosi’s cape, things like that.” She smiled at the thought of the goodies Luke would be bringing back, but then shifted her attention to Marian. “Anything new on the Apostrophe Thief loot?”
“I had a line on it, but it didn’t pan out.”
Janet smiled sympathetically. “Luke told us what happened. About how Augie’s big mouth spooked that guy, the one you were calling Rocky? I’m sorry you lost your lead.”
“Well, I’m not sure he knew Ernie Nordstrom’s address anyway,” Marian said. “But Vasquez would know, wouldn’t he?”
“Oh, sure.” Janet’s eyes narrowed. “They’re a strange pair. Vasquez never talks and Ernie never shuts up. You think they’re the ones who ripped off the Broadhurst?”
“Don’t know. I think Luke thinks so.”
“Luke is convinced of it. If you find Vasquez, how about giving us a call? One of my brothers or I would like to go along.”
“The scripts are mine.”
“Absolutely. But the other stuff—you’re not interested in that, are you?”
“Nope.”
“I didn’t think so.” Janet picked up a card from the table. “Here’s our number. You let us in on it, we’ll return the favor.”
Marian took the card. “I don’t mean to be naive, but aren’t you afraid of getting into trouble? Receiving stolen goods, like that?”
The other woman pooh-poohed the notion. “The police have more important things to keep them occupied than what they see as just a bunch of souvenirs. If it doesn’t have to do with drugs, they’re not interested.”
So that’s how they see us, Marian thought. Just then she caught sight of an arm waving in the air; it was the chubby man in the plaid jacket again. More irritated than curious, Marian told Janet Zingone goodbye and moved away from her table; she didn’t relish being stalked by either collector or dealer, whichever he was.
No sign of Augie. Marian briefly considered looking for him, but she’d never find him in that constantly moving mob of people. Maybe he was waiting outside. She started working her way toward the stairs.
“Hundred twenty-five is as high as I’ll go,” a man examining a woman’s scarf was saying. “Come on, you’re not going to do any better’n that … who collects Ann Rutherford?”
Marian climbed the stairs and glanced around; no Augie. She went outside the church and looked both ways along the sidewalk, but couldn’t spot her erstwhile guide anywhere. Well, no matter; she was finished here anyway. She started off toward the nearest subway station.
“Marian!”
She turned and looked; it was Chubby Plaids.
“You are Marian, aren’t you?”
Wondering, she nodded.
He puffed his way up to her, grinning happily. “You’re a hard lady to catch,” he wheezed, and stuck out a meaty hand. “I’m Harley Wingfield. I hear you’re looking for Elvis?”
The next morning Marian stood outside of Captain Murtaugh’s office, waiting until he finished giving instructions to two detectives investigating a jewelry store robbery. Murtaugh glanced up and saw her through the glass part of the door, and waved her away: This will take a while. Marian nodded and went back to Lieutenant Overbrook’s office.
While she waited, she got to thinking about Wadsworth the Aglet-Maker from Passaic. Overbrook had a dictionary on his shelves; it told her an aglet was the little sheath on the end of a shoelace. Marian half moaned, half laughed. This was a profession? And Wadsworth was moaning over the switch from metal to plastic? Shoelace tips! As the old song said, little things mean a lot.
The phone rang; it was Murtaugh summoning her to his office. As soon as she’d gone in and closed the door, he said, “Tell me what kind of man Captain DeFalco is.”
“Political animal,” Marian replied without hesitation. “Smart, but doesn’t strain himself in the ethics department. More interested in hearing his name on the news than in nailing the right perp. Steals credit for work done by others. Selective memory. Lies to his own people, when it suits his immediate purpose.” Marian sighed. “He’s active—not afraid of confrontations or challenges, but he’d sell out his grandmother for a momentary advantage. He knows how to run a good investigation up to a point, but then he jumps to conclusions from the flimsiest of evidence. Also, he lies a lot.”
Murtaugh was silent a moment. Then: “If all that’s true, why do you stay in his command?”
Marian grinned ironically. “I thought I was in your command.”
The captain thought that over. “You’re not going back to the Ninth Precinct, are you? Have you put in for a transfer?”
“No.”
Then he understood. “You’re going to resign.”
“Not until this business at the Broadhurst Theatre is cleared up,” Marian told him. “I promised Kelly Ingram I’d see it through.”
“But then you’re going to quit? Because of one captain in one precinct?”
Marian shook her head. “DiFalco’s just the final straw. This has been coming a long time, Captain. Why did you ask me about him?”
But Murtaugh wouldn’t be diverted. “I don’t know what brought you to this point, Sergeant, but I hope you’ll reconsider. You know how to run an investigation, and you’re a self-starter. If I had an opening here, I’d offer it to you. It couldn’t have been easy for you, earning that gold badge you carry. Don’t throw it away.”
Marian remained silent.
Murtaugh nodded. “All right, you’re not going to talk to me about it. I asked you about DiFalco because he wouldn’t let me borrow Gloria Sanchez until I gave him my word his precinct would be credited for whatever collar you and she make.”
Marian laughed shortly. “What did you tell him?”
“I told him he could have the collar—I just want to clear the case. He’s sending Sanchez over for a briefing this morning, but she has to go back and work out the rest of the day for him. And we pick up her overtime, for tonight at The, ah, Esophagus.”
Just then Perlmutter stuck his head in through the door, a look of wonder on his face. “Captain, you aren’t going to believe this,” he said in awestruck tones, “but Whoopi Goldberg’s here to see you.”
Marian sighed. “That’s Gloria.”
“Send her in,” said Murtaugh.
Perlmutter went to get her, and then lingered when he’d shown her in. Gloria Sanchez was wearing what she called her cool duds, meaning she had on nothing that could be ordered from a catalog. She’d fixed her hair in tiny ringlets, hundreds of them that hung down around her ears and stuck up and out in a few places and even hid her eyes, almost. In an odd sort of way, she did look a little like Whoopi Goldberg. Gloria peered out from under her hair long enough to wink at Marian before she said, “Captain Murtaugh? I’m Detective Sanchez. Captain DiFalco says you got a job for me.”
Murtaugh stood up to shake her hand and then pointed to a chair. “It’ll mean overtime tonight.
Any problem with that?”
“Noop.” Gloria sat down next to Marian.
“Is this the Broadhurst thing?” Perlmutter asked. He’d brought the theater’s cleaning crew in to look at mug shots, with no results, but it gave him a kind of stake in the case.
“You know about the burglary at the Broadhurst Theatre?” Murtaugh asked. Gloria nodded. The captain proceeded to summarize what Marian had learned, ending with, “This Vasquez is our best bet for finding out where Ernie Nordstrom lives. The trouble is, Vasquez speaks little or no English. And since he’s bound to be on his guard, it’d be better if he were approached in a ‘friendly’ environment … and by another Hispanic.”
Everyone looked at Whoopi Goldberg.
“Do you have any idea,” Gloria said heavily, “how long it took me to fix my hair this way?”
Murtaugh’s eyes crinkled into a smile. “We’ll need some plausible reason for you to strike up an acquaintance with him.”
“Why not just bring him in for questioning?” Perlmutter asked.
Marian said, “He may already have been warned.” She told about losing Kevin Kirby, alias the hunk, and added, “If Kirby was that cautious, Vasquez will be even more so. We can’t go at him straight on. We need something decidedly underhanded.”
“So you sent for me,” Gloria said wryly.
They tossed a few ideas back and forth, but nothing struck anyone as particularly workable. “She can go in as a groupie,” Perlmutter said, “that’s easy enough. But what reason would a groupie have to ask for Ernie Nordstrom’s address?”
“None,” Murtaugh said. “But what if she’s looking for something Vasquez knows Nordstrom has, some part of the Broadhurst haul?”
Marian pulled out her list of stolen items. “Scripts. Costumes. Small TV, notebook computer, radios and so forth. Two paintings.”
“Paintings,” said Murtaugh.
Marian read off the titles of the paintings and the names of the artists. “The cash value was probably inflated by the owners, but neither painting is in the Picasso class.”
“All right, we’ll leave those for now. What else?”
“Xandria Priest’s diary.”
“Ah,” said three voices.
Marian nodded. “That’s it. You have to get your hands on that diary before anyone else does, Gloria—that’s your story.”
“Forget the groupie pose,” Murtaugh said. “Tell Vasquez you came looking for him because somebody tipped you he might know about the diary.”
“What somebody?” Gloria asked.
“Kevin Kirby,” Marian said quickly. “You, ah, worked with him on a commercial.”
“Okay. But he’s not going to lead me to the diary out of the kindness of his heart. I’ll have to show him money.”
“Right,” Murtaugh said. “I’ll arrange it. But he’s not going to lead you to the diary in any event. If he buys your story, he’ll probably want to set up a meet with Ernie Nordstrom, or just go get it from him—but don’t let him put you off. You have to get that diary tonight. Make him think you’re desperate.”
“Why?” Perlmutter asked. “I mean, what if Vasquez asks her why she wants it?”
“I tell him I can’t tell him,” Gloria answered. “The story’ll be more credible if I seem to be holding something back.” She looked at Murtaugh. “I got a good desperate-woman act.”
He raised an eyebrow. “Glad to hear it. All right, say he buys your story when you flash a wad of greenbacks at him. Then what? He tells you to meet him somewhere later and goes off alone to Ernie Nordstrom’s place?”
The others nodded. “Seems reasonable,” Marian said.
“At which point it turns into a tail job,” the captain said. “And that’s the part I don’t like. It’s got to be a two-tail. Larch is okay, but he’ll know Sanchez. If he spots you—”
“Ah, Captain—” Perlmutter interrupted.
“No more overtime, Perlmutter,” Murtaugh said. “They’ll have to handle it alone. But I don’t like it.”
“No problem, Captain,” Gloria said. “I’ll wear something flashy when I talk to him, but I’ll have something dark on underneath. I can do a quick change in the ladies’ room.”
They worked out a few more details until Murtaugh was finally satisfied. “That’s it, then. Let’s wrap this up tonight.”
“Solid,” Gloria said and waved goodbye.
Perlmutter followed her out. “Did anyone ever tell you you look like Whoopi Goldberg?”
Murtaugh watched them go. “Can she really make a convincing Hispanic?”
“Don’t worry, Captain,” Marian reassured him, “tonight she’ll be Chita Rivera. Something else—is there time to get a warrant?”
“Already in the works. We’ll have it by this afternoon. Sergeant … proceed with caution. This Vasquez is an unknown factor. He could turn violent.”
“Gloria and I will both be careful,” Marian promised him. “Presumably Vasquez won’t be armed, but we’ll proceed as if he were.”
Murtaugh nodded. “That’s what I like to hear.”
They were finished, so Marian got up and left the captain’s office. Perlmutter was on the phone; he held up a hand to stop her. “Call for you.”
It was Holland; he wanted her to meet him for lunch.
10
The restaurant was not a new one, but Marian had never been there before—had not, in fact, known of its existence. Called Avec Plaisir, it offered some of the same menu items as Le Cirque, arguably the best restaurant in New York. But unlike Le Cirque, Avec Plaisir did not place its tables so close together as to force shoulder-to-shoulder dining. The food was delicious, the service prompt and nonintrusive, the atmosphere one of quiet composure. Avec Plaisir was, from every point of view, a find. Leave it to Holland to have found it.
Something was bothering him. Broody and distracted, he barely spoke during the first half of the meal. Eventually Marian figured it out: he’d brought her there to apologize. Apologies did not come easily to Holland.
Finally he made a stab at it. “Saturday night … after the play. When you wanted to go to the Column Left. To go dancing.”
“Yes?” It came out sounding more amused than encouraging.
“I, ah, I think I may have overreacted a trifle.”
“Hm. When will you know for sure?”
“Oh, very well, I did overreact, and I’m sorry. There.”
There. “What made you so angry?” Marian asked. “You’d think we’d asked you to help bomb IBM.”
He leaned forward over his plate, as if to make sure she could hear him. “It was the music.”
That didn’t make much sense. “What music?”
“The music that’s played at places like Column Left. I say ‘music’ because that’s what other people call it, but it’s not. It’s uninventive noise, manufactured by the ungifted for the undiscriminating. It’s music for people who don’t understand music. Ear-shattering lullabies for the sleepwalking masses.”
“Gawrsh,” Marian said poker-faced. “I hadn’t realized it was that iniquitous.”
His eyes narrowed. “A joke to you, but a serious matter to me. Music like that is an insult. And I was outraged that you did not acknowledge it as such.”
“Let’s see if I understand you. You snubbed Kelly and walked out on me because you don’t like the kind of music played at Column Left. Did I get that right?”
“Don’t oversimplify.”
“Have you ever been to Column Left?”
He made a dismissive gesture. “All those places play down to their listeners. It doesn’t matter whether it’s pop or rock or newage.” Rhymed with “sewage.” “It’s such bad music. And when you go to places like Column Left, you simply encourage them, don’t you see.”
Marian made a noise of exasperation. “Holland, couldn’t you have just said that? Couldn’t you have said, ‘I don’t like that kind of music and I don’t want to go’? We all understand English.”
He spoke throu
gh clenched teeth. “That’s what I’m apologizing for. The fact that I did not say that.”
She kept a poker face. “Oh. Well, I’m glad we got that straightened out. But you don’t fool me. I know what you’re really after. You want to come to The Esophagus with me tonight.”
He gave her a look of utter horror.
Marian laughed. “A joke. In fact, I want you to give me your word you will not come to The Esophagus tonight. I don’t want to find you sitting in the next booth again, if The Esophagus has booths.”
“Butt out?”
“Yep. Cops aren’t supposed to take dates along on busts.”
“Then you’re going to wrap it up tonight?”
“Looks like it. It depends on whether Vasquez goes for some bait we’re going to dangle in front of him. I think he’ll bite.”
“Then you’ll be … finished.”
With a shock Marian realized she’d not thought of that: if they found Ernie Nordstrom tonight, today was her last day of being a cop. She nodded dumbly.
“Excellent,” said Holland. “Are you through eating? I have something I want to show you.”
She finished her coffee and they left. Holland hailed a cab and gave an address on Lexington Avenue. After twelve minutes of Dodg’em, the taxi pulled up in front of a steel-and-glass tower.
“What’s this?” Marian asked.
“Wait.”
The lobby of the building had no furnishings to distract from the august starkness of the marble walls and floors. In the otherwise unoccupied elevator, Holland pressed the button for the eighteenth floor.
“What?”
“Wait.”
The eighteenth floor had the same marble walls, but the floor was covered with deep charcoal-gray carpeting. Holland unlocked the door to Suite 1802 and gestured her inside. She stepped through and swallowed a gasp. The reception area alone was the size of her entire apartment. The place was new, modern, unspeakably expensive. The office suite was as yet unfurnished, so the place undoubtedly looked more spacious than it actually was; still …
Marian shot a sharp look at Holland. “I didn’t know you had this kind of money.”
