Instead, I turned on my side and pulled the covers over my head. I was in my early forties. I didn’t have a husband. I didn’t have children. I didn’t even have health insurance, for God’s sake. I had a business that was on the verge of going under. I was in debt. I hadn’t spoken to my mother in—how many years? Maybe my mother had been right.
Maybe I shouldn’t have married Murphy. Maybe I should have married the Park Avenue lawyer and joined the country club and hosted dinner parties and done charity work. Volunteered at the temple. Become chairman of a committee or two. Had a child. Maybe even two. Eventually get a job as an editor somewhere. Or work as a receptionist in an art gallery. Even if I got divorced, I’d still be in better shape than I was now.
But I hadn’t loved the Park Avenue lawyer. I’d loved Murphy. I pulled the covers back down and clicked the television back on. That was the problem. That had always been the problem. I always went with my emotions.
Maybe love was an overrated commodity. In the Middle Ages, people had considered it a form of insanity. Maybe it was. Look at what it had done for Wilcox. He’d been going along—not great, but okay—and he’d met Alima and his life had spun out of control. He’d done things he’d probably never considered doing. And for who? A girl who made her living rubbing herself on men’s crotches, a girl whose main goal in life was to separate men from their money.
And on that edifying note, I drifted off to sleep.
Chapter Twenty-Five
I got up in a better mood than I’d gone to bed in. There’s something about the anonymity of hotel rooms, with their promise of possibilities, that always cheers me up. I don’t know what that says about me, but it’s probably not good.
I took a long, hot shower, got dressed in my snazzy clothes, took the elevator downstairs, and had a big breakfast consisting of fresh-squeezed orange juice, two fried eggs, a toasted English muffin, home fries, bacon, and three cups of coffee with cream while I read the New York Times in a coffee shop not too far away from the hotel. I was finishing my last cup when Paul called me on my cell.
“How’s it going?”
“It’s not.” I took a last sip and pushed the cup away. “I’m just about to get started.”
“Do you know what time . . . ,” he began before I cut him off.
“Hey, feel free to jump in whenever you want.”
There was silence on the other end of the line.
“I’ll call you when I have some news.” I pressed the off button and motioned for my check.
The sun was out and the temperature was in the high thirties. I whistled as I drove uptown. Third Avenue looked good. Traffic was moving. Sun glinted off the tops of the skyscrapers. The mica embedded in the pavement sparkled. Waiters were out in front of their restaurants hosing down their part of the sidewalk. Clusters of people stood outside office buildings taking early cigarette breaks. I automatically reached for my pack and lit up. Solidarity in all things.
I noticed a street vendor on the corner. They were all over the place. This one was doing a brisk business selling coffee and doughnuts to people coming out of the subway. I wasn’t certain, but I didn’t think we’d had so many of those when I lived here. Shop windows sported expensive merchandise. People on the streets were walking with their heads held higher than they were yesterday.
I double-parked in front of Quintillo’s building, trotted up the steps, and buzzed Quintillo’s apartment. No one answered. I hoped he hadn’t taken off with Janet. I checked my watch. It was a little after nine. Maybe he’d gone off to work. I called the work number Paul had given me and asked.
“Mr. Quintillo,” a woman with a snotty British accent told me, “never arrives before ten-thirty in the morning.”
“Really? How lovely for him.”
The woman’s accent became a little more North Country and a little less Sloane Ranger.
“I believe he works out at the health club every morning. May I tell him who’s calling when he comes in?”
“Dr. Ozma’s office manager.”
“Dr. Who?”
“Ozma.” I spelled it out. “O-Z-M-A. The famous Park Avenue plastic surgeon.”
“Of course.”
Sometimes you just have to amuse yourself.
“I’ll be in touch.”
And I clicked the off button on my cell phone at the same time I looked at my watch. It was nine-thirty. I had a little over an hour to kill. I decided to spend it at the Metropolitan Museum of Art. When I was a kid, I’d loved the Egyptian Wing. No one ever went there. It was quiet and dim—my private world.
The guards hadn’t cared when I’d perched on the foot of the statues made of marble. I would go there on Saturday mornings and dream I was Nefertiti, Queen of Egypt, or scare myself by making myself believe a mummy was going to chase me.
But the exhibition had changed over the years. It had upscaled just like the rest of Manhattan had. Now, the wing was bright and busy, full of tourists and swarms of chattering schoolchildren. Now, it cost way more than it should to get in, given that the Metropolitan Museum of Art is supposed to be a public institution. The suggested entrance fee was $10.25. I slid a dollar toward the volunteer. She gave me a scathing look. I smiled back. Scathing looks don’t do much to me anymore.
“I’m one of the poor huddled masses,” I explained.
She wasn’t appeased. Reluctantly, she handed me my button. I put it on the lapel of my jacket and walked by the guards.
Everything in the Egyptian Wing was clearly labeled and arranged in chronological order. It’s true you could learn more. But it lacked the mystery it had before. Or maybe it was just that I was older. But it was still a pleasant place to be, and I whiled away a little under an hour drifting through the rooms looking at the jewelry and the drawings on the papyrus.
When I was done, I made my way out to my car and drove over to the gallery Quintillo housed his business in. Even though it was located in the low nineties instead of down on Gallery Row, the place still looked posh. A still life from a relatively minor French seventeenth-century painter was displayed in the window with the lavishness that a Delacroix would have deserved.
The gallery itself was carpeted in light green. A slightly grayer shade of green was on the walls. Pictures of more second-rate seventeenth- and eighteenth-century painters in extremely expensive, ornate frames hung on the walls. Toward the middle of the room sat the woman who I assumed was the one I’d previously spoken to. The desk she was sitting behind was Georgian, and there was an enormous bouquet of fancy tropical flowers in the middle of it.
The woman herself was slim and blond and dressed in the usual New York City black pants and a black sweater. What a surprise. She measured me as I approached, and from the expression on her face I could tell that she found my shoes, pants, and jacket acceptable. I wondered if she would have frozen me with her disdain if she hadn’t. She folded her hands in front of her and smiled.
“May I help you?”
“I certainly hope so. I called earlier.”
“Oh, yes.”
She looked at her watch. It was thin, just as she was, and gold and probably cost more than my car. Somehow I didn’t think she’d earned the money for it working here.
“Mr. Quintillo is running a little late,” she informed me. “I’m expecting him in at any moment.”
“That’s all right. I’ll wait.” And I moved off to study the paintings on the walls.
Fifteen minutes later, Quintillo barged in. He was carrying a take-out container of coffee in one hand and a briefcase in the other. He looked shorter than I remembered, and as I watched him I realized that his arms were longer than average. He was going bald on top. He’d had what hair he had left cut close to his head under the misconception that it made him look hip, instead of like a man trying to hide the fact that he was going bald. His eyes were close set and looked puffy, as if he hadn’t been getting a lot of sleep. His face was clean shaven.
He was wearing fancy clothes—a cashme
re coat and, from what I could see, an expensive blue suit, striped shirt, and paisley tie—but his walk didn’t match his clothes and I got the distinct impression he would have been happier in jeans, a sweatshirt, work boots, and a baseball cap.
The receptionist nodded at me and explained who I was. I watched Quintillo’s forehead furrow as he tried to place me. I wouldn’t have been surprised if he recognized me from the night I spoke to him—people in his line of work usually have a good memory for faces. But he didn’t. Maybe it was because I was dressed differently now and my hair was up and pulled away from my face.
I smiled and moved toward him. We shook hands.
Here we go, I thought.
Chapter Twenty-Six
Quintillo. frowned, crossed his right arm over his waist, leaned his left elbow on it, and tapped his chin with the fingers of his left hand. “This is going to bother me. I know I’ve seen you before.”
“I live around here,” I said.
“That must be it,” Quintillo replied. There was a tinge of doubt in his voice. But he didn’t pursue it. I was a possible customer, after all.
After exchanging a few niceties, I explained what Dr. Ozma wanted for his waiting room. Preferably something French. Something tasteful. Something soothing.
“Ozma.” Quintillo cocked an eyebrow. “I don’t remember hearing that name.”
“Well, you should.” I acted surprised. “He was mentioned in Vogue and Elle recently. Why don’t we go in your office and discuss things.”
Quintillo demurred. “I usually prefer to talk to my clients directly. That way I can get a feel for their personalities. I find it works better.”
I gave him my most winning smile.
“I’m sure in most cases it does, but Dr. Ozma was very specific in his delegation of this responsibility to me. Unfortunately, his time is taken up with the press of his commitments.”
Quintillo smiled back, but it was a teeth-only smile. His heart wasn’t in it. I could see he didn’t like having his way of doing business interrupted.
“Fine,” he said. “Perhaps I could have a phone consultation with him at some time.”
“I’m sure that can be arranged.”
At this point the receptionist, who had been following the conversation, suggested using one of the rooms off the main gallery. If we’d been in a car dealership, they would have called it the closing room. I don’t know what they called it in the art world, but the principle was the same. Get in there and make that sale.
Quintillo gave her a grateful look. I followed him into one of the rooms along the periphery of the gallery. Quintillo closed the door behind us. The colors were the same as the colors outside, but the walls were bare and the lighting was subdued.
I gave him my jacket and he hung it on a hook by the far wall and did the same for his.
“We don’t have a closet,” he said apologetically as we both sat down.
A moment later, the receptionist knocked and opened the door. She was carrying a tray with two white bone-china cups, a silver coffeepot, sugar bowl and creamer, and a plate of cookies. Quintillo gave her another smile. We were all doing a lot of smiling around here.
He poured me a cup of coffee and put it in front of me. I added cream and two teaspoons of sugar and took a sip. It was good. It was better than good.
I was reflecting that the rich live better than you and me as he poured himself a cup. “I’m afraid I didn’t get your name,” he said.
“I’m sorry. It’s Robin. Robin Light.”
“Now,” he said, beaming at me. “Robin, can you go into a little more detail about what it is that Dr. Ozma wants.”
“Love to.”
He waited.
I took another sip of coffee and said, “You, my friend, are in some serious shit.”
A flash of recognition shot through his face.
“Jeez,” he said. “You’re the woman . . .”
“Who had the wrong building,” I finished for him.
Better late than never.
“I knew you looked familiar.”
“I was wearing different clothes.”
His eyes flicked across my face and back. Suddenly he wasn’t Mr. Smooth-Talking Art Dealer anymore. He was working-class New Jersey.
“Fuck. There is no Dr. Ozma, is there?”
“Nope.”
“Ozma from Oz,” Quintillo said. “Not a bad name for a plastic surgeon.”
“I like to think of myself as a genius in my own quiet way.”
“And you’re—”
“Oh, I’m still Robin Light.” I took out my card, the one that said I was a private detective, and shoved it across the table. “Right now, I’m working for a guy called Paul Santini.”
“You don’t look like a private detective,” Quintillo said.
“Then I guess we’re even because you don’t look like an art dealer.”
“Fair enough. Now that we’ve established that we don’t look like we should, I want you to get out.” And he jerked his thumb toward the door.
“I don’t think so.” I took another drink of coffee. “What blend are you using? This is really very good.”
He started to rise. “I’m getting Amanda to call the police.”
“You can if you want, but that would be a profound mistake on your part.”
I snagged a cookie and bit into it. I tasted butter and oatmeal and walnuts and raisins and something I couldn’t define. Then I got it. Orange peel. I reached for another cookie and ate that too as Quintillo considered what I’d said.
“All right,” he said as I tried out what looked like a brown-sugar shortbread. “You got five minutes to tell me what you want.”
I dusted the crumbs off my mouth and wiped my hands on the linen napkin the receptionist had so thoughtfully provided.
“I think you already know. I need to locate Janet Wilcox.”
“Unfortunately, I don’t know where she is.”
“I don’t believe you. By the way, where did you get these cookies? They’re delicious.”
“A bakery on Third Avenue between 79th and 78th Streets. I’ve already spoken to the police. I’ll tell you what I told them. I came home from work, and Janet Wilcox wasn’t there. I have no idea where she went.”
“It’s very important that I find her.”
“Maybe it is, maybe it isn’t, but that has nothing to do with me. I sell art, I don’t run a missing-persons bureau.”
“Perhaps you should.”
And I leaned forward and told him about what had happened to Wilcox. I could see him getting paler as I spoke.
He opened his jacket and loosened his tie.
“How do I know you’re telling the truth?”
“Call Paul Santini and ask him.” I gave him the number.
He looked even worse when he got off the phone.
“I can’t believe it,” he said to me. “People like that. They should take them out to the Pine Barrens and cap ’em.” He shook his head. His voice trailed off.
I popped another shortbread cookie in my mouth. It literally melted on my tongue. I wondered how much a pound of them cost. Probably a lot. On the other hand, what else was expense money for?
“Here’s something else to consider. The people who did that to Wilcox are really anxious to have their property returned. Right now, they don’t know about you, but believe me, I can remedy that in an instant.”
“So what? I have nothing to do with this.”
“I don’t think they’re exactly discriminating in the fixing-blame department, if you get my meaning.”
“But they don’t know who I am,” Quintillo protested. Then enlightenment struck. “You wouldn’t,” he said, looking at my face.
I smiled again. Given the atmosphere, it seemed like the right thing to do. “I will if I have to.”
“I don’t believe you.”
“Why?” I pointed to my breasts. “You’re making a mistake if you think that having these automatically makes me a
compassionate person.”
“Shit,” Quintillo said.
He bit his thumbnail.
I took another sip of coffee while I was waiting and watched Quintillo dab at a nonexistent spot on his tie.
“I knew I should never have said yes when she called me up,” he told me. “See, this is why it’s hard to be nice. The only thing it gets you is in trouble.”
“I don’t think the Pope would agree. Why did she leave your place?”
Quintillo put his cup and saucer back on the tray. “My apartment is really small. A tiny one-bedroom. After a while she got tired of sleeping on the sofa.”
“So you and she aren’t . . .”
“God, no.” Quintillo shook his head. “She’s not my type. I’m not sure that she’s anyone’s type. We’re just friends.”
“I heard she doesn’t have many of those either.”
“I don’t think she does.”
“So how come you and she were?”
“We were never friend friends. She has an interest in art. I think I’m the only person she knows she can discuss it with. But we hadn’t talked in—I don’t know.” Quintillo stopped to calculate. “At least five years.”
“And then she just pops up. Weren’t you surprised when she called you?”
“Sure I was.”
“And you just let her come down.”
“Hey, I’m a nice guy.”
“So you said.” I got up and leaned against the wall and folded my arms across my chest. “Here’s what I think. I think she offered to pay you to let her hide out in your place, and you said okay.”
“Why would I do something like that?”
“Because you need the money.”
Quintillo gestured around the room. “Does this setup look like I’m a guy who needs money?”
“No. But this isn’t your setup. I’d wager you’re just renting the use of the space and the receptionist. Given what you do, you couldn’t afford something like this. If you could, you’d be living on Park Avenue instead of 81st Street. So how much did she offer you? Five hundred? A thousand?”
Quintillo pursed his lips.
I walked over to the table and sat back down. “Hey, this is New York City. Everyone hustles. That’s one of the things that makes this place so great.”
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