Vanishing Act

by Seth Margolis

  Joe D. rewound the tape machine, wondering who would leave an intriguing message this early in the morning—it was still barely nine. The tape clicked into position and he heard Estelle Ferguson’s voice. She sounded as if she were whispering.

  “It’s Estelle. Listen, there’s something I want to show you. I’m already at my desk. It’s seven-thirty. Something’s about to happen, I’m sure of it. Tomorrow. Could we get together during lunch today? I could meet you at the same place we met last time. Call as soon as you get back.” A long pause. “I hope I’m doing the right thing.”

  Joe D. dialed the Alliance’s number and was connected to Estelle’s extension. He heard a click on the line and knew the call was being forwarded to another desk. “Estelle Ferguson’s line.” The woman’s voice sounded annoyed at having to cover for Estelle.

  Joe D. asked for her and was told she wasn’t in yet. He asked if she were sure about this, and she replied, testily, that she was positive. He hung up without leaving a message and tried Estelle’s apartment. No answer.

  Joe D. tried to hail a cab across town, but 9:00 was the tail end of rush hour and taxis were scarce. He ran to the cross-town bus stop, but was too impatient to wait, and started to jog towards Central Park. At Fifth Avenue there was still no sign of the bus so, reluctantly, he entered the park and jogged to the West Side. He arrived at the New York Art Alliance building out of breath. Fortunately, it was only mildly warm and he was only mildly damp.

  He waved to the receptionist and kept on running up the broad staircase. He trotted down the hallway towards Arnot’s office and stopped in front of Estelle’s desk. It was empty. All the way over from the East Side Joe D. had been hoping against hope that she’d be there, that after calling him she’d stepped out for a bagel or something. The sight of the empty desk dashed these hopes.

  The top of her desk was a jumble of papers and stray pens and paper clips. He didn’t know about Estelle’s work habits, but he knew that a lot of secretaries liked to tidy up their desks before leaving for any length of time. Estelle’s desk looked as if she’d left it assuming she’d be back in a few minutes. Arnot’s door was closed. Joe D. sat in Estelle’s chair and began sorting through the papers on her desk. Most had to do with New York Art Alliance business—requests for grants, acknowledgments of grants, personnel matters. He opened the top drawer and discovered that Estelle was in fact a very neat person. Papers were perfectly stacked, pens lined up in a neat row, envelopes squarely sorted by size. He found nothing, however, that might have precipitated her anxious phone call.

  He went through her drawers quickly, wondering whether Arnot was behind the closed door or simply hadn’t come in yet. Perhaps he needed more time to recompose himself after their morning chat. He hadn’t expected to find anything on the desk, but couldn’t help feeling disappointed. Then he noticed a small slip of paper poking out from under several larger papers. He pulled it out and was surprised to find his initials—“J.D.”—written over a phone number. Arnot’s door opened at that moment, and Joe D. balled up the paper in his palm.

  “What the hell are you doing here?”

  Arnot looked pale and drawn. Even at the depth of his sobbing earlier he hadn’t looked this bad.

  “Where’s your secretary, Arnot?”

  “What business is that of yours?”

  Joe D. stood up and slipped past Arnot into his office. He looked around…for what? For Estelle Ferguson, bound and gagged on the sofa? Bleeding on the oriental carpet? Instead, he found the office as neat as it always was.

  Arnot followed him into the office and closed the door behind him. “I demand an explanation,” he said, but his voice was less authoritative than weary.

  Joe D. decided to tell the truth. He sensed that Estelle was in trouble, and if she were in trouble then it was no secret—to somebody, at any rate—that she and Joe D. were in touch. “Estelle called me this morning,” he said. “Early, around eight-thirty.”

  Arnot turned away, but Joe D. had caught the look of alarm on his face. He decided to scrap the truth temporarily. “I guess you know what she told me,” he said with deliberate vagueness.

  Arnot still had his back to Joe D. “I have no idea what she told you. If you think she was involved in anything illegal…”

  “You’re the one embezzling funds from the Alliance.” Joe D. wondered how long he could keep this going without having to reveal that he and Estelle had never actually spoken that morning.

  Arnot spun around, a new glint of resolve in his eyes. “If Estelle told you something incriminating, then why aren’t you here with the police, tell me that?”

  “Where is she?” Joe D. asked.

  “No one’s seen her this morning.”

  “Does she ever leave her desk without telling you?”

  “Only to make copies or get coffee.”

  “If I don’t hear from her in an hour, I’m calling the police.”

  Arnot nodded solemnly a few times. “If you think you have to.”

  “It would be a lot easier if you’d tell me what happened to her.”

  “I don’t know,” he practically wailed. He either knew the truth, and was distressed by it, or was in the dark, and was distressed by that. In either case he looks as if he’s about to collapse, Joe D. thought, as he left Arnot in his office. He stopped again at Estelle’s desk to call in to his answering machine. Alison had called, still intrigued by the phone message she’d heard, but there were no new messages from Estelle Ferguson.

  Twenty-Eight

  Joe D. questioned a few of the Alliance employees to find out if anyone had seen Estelle that morning. None had. The earliest to arrive had been a grants administrator with an office just off the main foyer on the first floor. She’d arrived at 8:15. The New York Art Alliance was not, apparently, a beehive of early risers.

  Joe D. caught a bus back to the East Side. A cab would have been quicker but, despite a growing sense of alarm about Estelle Ferguson, Joe D. wasn’t quite sure what to do. The bus ride gave him a chance to think.

  He thought. Arnot wasn’t responsible for Estelle’s disappearance. She had called Joe D. at 8:30 and, one way or another, had left the Alliance building before the first employee arrived at 8:15. Since Joe D. had been with Arnot until about 7:45, it seemed very unlikely that he could have raced over to the Alliance headquarters and…and what? He chose not to follow this thought to its conclusion. He didn’t want to think about what might have happened to Estelle, and all because she’d tried to contact him.

  He absentmindedly massaged the pants pocket in which he’d shoved the balled up paper with his name and number on it. All because she’d tried to contact him. He retrieved the paper and smoothed it out, barely noticing it. Were these the last words she’d written before disappearing, his name and number? He refolded the paper and was about to put it back in his pocket when something struck him. He unfolded the scrap and looked at it. In his haste to dispose of the paper before Arnot saw it, Joe D. hadn’t read it too closely. He’d noticed his initials, and assumed the number below them was his.

  Bad assumption.

  The initials were his, abbreviated. But the telephone number was not.

  The bus lumbered through Central Park, and Joe D. wished to god he’d taken a cab. Fifth Avenue. Madison. Park. At Lexington he got off and ran the rest of the way along Sixty-sixth Street, easily outpacing the bus. Then he headed up Second and reached the apartment a few minutes later.

  His answering machine greeted him dumbly, without a blink. He called the Alliance and was put through to Arnot, who answered his own phone: a bad sign. Sure enough, Estelle still hadn’t shown up. He tried her apartment. Still no answer. Then he dialed the number Estelle had written on the slip of paper.

  “Airways Charter.” A woman’s voice.

  Joe D. had to stop and catch his breath. He used the interval to try to figure out why Estelle had written his initials above the telephone number of Airways Charter. She must have wanted him to call
the company. Why?

  “Airways Charter, hello?”

  In an instant he devised a strategy. “Yeah, uh, this is Stuart Arnot.” Joe D. held his breath.

  “Yes, Mr. Arnot,” the woman said casually, but with no recognition. “This is Karen Schmidt. How may I help you?”

  “I just wanted to reconfirm the arrangements we had made.”

  He heard her type on a keyboard. “We have no arrangements made under the name Arnot, sir.”

  “Gee, my secretary must have made the arrangements under another passenger’s name. Try Samson.”

  More typing. “No Samson.”

  The strategy was faltering. “This is a jet charter service, isn’t it?” he said, stalling.

  “That’s right.” She was beginning to sound annoyed.

  “Maybe you could read me the names of the people who’ve reserved flights for today and tomorrow, and then I’ll know what name my secretary booked us under. We’re a large party.”

  He heard a big, tired sigh on the other end: 9:15, and already hassles. “Today we have jets for Anderson, Popejoy, and Finley. Tomorrow we have Berkeley, Roberts, Rudolph, Sonnenberg…”

  A flash went off inside his head. He gripped the receiver tighter, as if it might fly out of his hand. “Arthur Rudolph?”

  “Arthur Rudolph and one other passenger.”

  “Whose name is…”

  “It doesn’t indicate. Say, if you’re on the flight, you should know that.”

  “I’m the other passenger,” he said quickly.

  “And I thought you said you were with a large party.”

  He couldn’t think of anything to say to this, so he ignored it. “What time are we due to take off?”

  “Eight A.M. from Butler Aviation in Queens. In a Cessna Eight-Ten. Arriving Grand Cayman at noon. There’s a one-hour time difference. I hope you’re not planning on changing your arrangements again. We’ve already had to reschedule two of our pilots to accommodate Mr. Rudolph once.”

  “No, no changes. I just want to make sure everything is correct, that’s all.” Joe D. felt a kind of lightheadedness come over him. This made it difficult to scribble everything she’d just said.

  “Well, is everything correct or isn’t it?”

  “What date were we originally scheduled for?”

  “The day after tomorrow. But Mr. Rudolph called this morning to move it up a day.”

  “Mr. Rudolph called?”

  “That’s right.”

  “Did Mr. Rudolph leave a phone number, Karen?”

  “Yes, he did.” She read him the number, which he copied down.

  “How is Mr. Rudolph planning on paying for the charter?”

  “My records indicate in cash.”

  “How much is the flight?”

  “I really don’t know if I’m…”

  “Mr. Rudolph’s an employee, you see. He may be paying up front, but I’ll be reimbursing him later.”

  “Well…it’s eight thousand dollars, plus a fuel surcharge and landing fees.”

  “In cash, you say? Isn’t that unusual?”

  “Not at all,” she said, then quickly added, “Well, some people pay in cash.” Drug dealers, mostly, Joe D. guessed. No wonder she regretted sharing this information with him.

  “What about immigration?”

  “What about it?”

  “Do you require a passport or anything?”

  “We just deliver our passengers. Immigration and what-not are their problem. Is there anything else?”

  There better not be, her tone warned him. And in fact there wasn’t.

  Joe D. hung up and dialed the number she had given him. After two rings it picked up. The voice was uncharacteristically hoarse, and there was an urgent breathiness to it. But he recognized it at once, and he wasn’t surprised. Joe D. hung up without identifying himself. The voice belonged to Stuart Arnot.

  Twenty-Nine

  Joe D. called Arnot a few minutes later on his non-private line, this time to see if there was any news about Estelle. He considered asking him about his travel plans, but he was tired of hearing lies. It was like watching a rerun of a TV show you didn’t particularly enjoy the first time around. Besides, another plan was taking shape in his head.

  “It’s Joe D. Heard from Estelle?”

  “Not yet.”

  “You must be getting worried.”

  “Not really,” Arnot said. Then, as if realizing how his indifference must sound, he added, “Well, of course, I’m concerned. But I’m sure Estelle had a doctor’s appointment she forgot to tell me about.”

  Joe D. hung up and called a New York City cop he knew from his days on the Waterside force. A couple of years ago Charlie Dinofrio had been working on a drug case that involved a small-time runner who lived on the South Shore. Joe D. had been assigned to help Dinofrio nail the guy, which basically involved sitting in a car for three days a half-block from his house and reporting any unexplained movements. There was an unexplained movement, as it turned out. Two guys in silk suits arrived one morning carrying briefcases. They didn’t look like Avon ladies, so Joe D. radioed his captain, who called Dinofrio, who arrived, by helicopter, a half hour later. A bust was made, while Joe D. watched, under orders not to interfere, from half a block away. Dinofrio had told him that if he ever needed a favor…

  “I need a favor.”

  “Shoot,” Dinofrio said.

  Joe D. wanted to get to the point, but felt he had to fill Dinofrio in on a few things. He quickly told him about his move to Manhattan, about opening a detective agency, and finally about working on the Samson murder.

  “Cut and dried,” Dinofrio interrupted. “A hijacking.”

  Joe D. wasn’t about to argue with him. Nobody likes having their work second-guessed, cops included. “Probably. But in the meantime there’s this secretary who’s been helpful to me, Estelle Ferguson. She’s turned up missing, and I wanted to report it to the cops without too many questions, know what I mean?”

  Dinofrio did know, and he promised to look into it with a minimum of fuss.

  His civic duty done, Joe D. planned his evening, beginning with a call to Alison. She chided him for not calling earlier to explain about Estelle’s message, which she’d overheard while getting dressed that morning. She was suitably alarmed.

  “I have to work tonight,” he said, sounding like the corporate lawyer he always suspected she wanted him to be.

  “None of this breaking and entering stuff, I hope,” Alison said, hitting the nail on the head.

  “I have to dictate a letter, take a meeting, then entertain clients over dinner at the Four Seasons. The usual.”

  “Very funny. Be careful.”

  He figured New York Art Alliance employees were not the late-working types—most probably had cocktail parties or openings scheduled. Joe D. decided he’d drop by at around 9:00. He’d worked a few things out, knew there were still some unresolved issues, and was convinced that the solution to the whole mess was in the New York Art Alliance building. He’d been brained there, Estelle Ferguson had disappeared from there, and in both instances one thing bothered him (other than the lump on the back of his head, which still made brushing his hair a trial): How did the person or persons responsible for these acts know that he’d be there when he was, and that Estelle had just called him when she did?

  The answer, he knew, was in the building itself.

  The afternoon loomed, long and empty, like most of his afternoons pre-Samson. Joe D. changed into shorts and a T-shirt and jogged over to the park. He’d already jogged through the park once today, racing over to the Alliance building, but he still felt charged with a restless energy that only further exercise would diffuse. He circled the reservoir twice and then, having killed only a half hour, trotted around it a third time. On his way back to the apartment, he walked down Fifth Avenue on the park side, and stood opposite Mona Samson’s building for a few minutes. He counted windows up to her floor and stared dumbly at it for a while. Of a
ll the people in this case he guessed that she alone knew the whole story. But she wasn’t talking, not surprisingly. The row of windows along the eleventh floor appeared grimly impassive. The afternoon sun glanced off them, creating a hollowed-out look, as if the building was just a facade, with nothing but empty space behind it.

  He got back to the apartment and showered. Enforced idleness is never easy to take. But it’s purgatory when you know that things are happening that affect you, but over which you have no control. Joe D. could practically hear the players in the Samson case buzzing around him, plotting and conspiring. And he knew the window of opportunity for him to be effective was closing quickly. At 8:00 tomorrow morning a plane was taking off. Among its cargo was the solution to the Samson case.

  Of course, even if tonight turned out to be worthless, he’d do his best to make sure the plane didn’t take off. He figured he could call Dinofrio, who’d have contacts with the immigration people. But Joe D. suspected there would be no obvious reason for the authorities to delay the plane. A vision of the Cessna taking off over Queens haunted the periphery of Joe D.’s mind all afternoon.

  He retrieved his gun from its home at the back of the bottom drawer of his dresser. It was a semiautomatic Beretta, his first purchase after leaving the Waterside force, and its dense weight never failed to reassure him, though he hoped to god he wouldn’t have to use it. Alison regarded it as she would a pet boa constrictor, and had been urging him to store it in a safety deposit box. Still stalling for time, he gave it a good cleaning and then strapped it on, using a leather harness. He put a jeans jacket on over it and left for the West Side.

  He arrived at the Alliance building at 8:00. He stood across the street from it and was gratified to find that all the lights were off. He used Estelle Ferguson’s key to unlock the front door and punched in the alarm code. It was déjà vu all over again, a thought he found not at all comforting.

  He was looking for something larger than bank statements tonight, but he suspected that Arnot’s office was the place to begin this time too.